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ARCA Truck Series: Jeff Myers Jr Victorious in Kentucky

Whitesville, KY – The 2014 Holley Performance Rookie of the Year was nearly fifty points behind points leader Cody Quarrick, and was in desperate need of a win if he wanted to come back and win the 2015 championship. He entered Columbus Motor Speedway with the most wins, but his roller coaster season didn’t include the points leader.

Since that Saturday in August, Myers has won two of the past three races. Had it not been for a bolt that sheared off at Jennerstown on August 8th that would be three of the past three races.

Anyone can sit back and count the maybes and make excuses, however the SPEAR Motorsports team continues to strive on and show no quit in their quest for a championship.

This weekend’s events were started with this year’s Holley Performance Rookie of the Year, Katlynn Leer, leading the field in practice. It was this event one year ago that she made her debut in the ARCA Truck Series. Since that event she has logged many fine performances and has locked up the 2015 Holley Performance Rookie of the Year award.

However, it was veteran Shawn Szep out qualifying the field by nearly three tenths of a second in the Rocco Kirsch pole award qualifying. Szep came close to the track record as well, missing the time set by Cody Quarrick in 2012 by less than seven hundredths of a second. Behind Szep was Quarrick and Chad Poorman, who was making his return to the ARCA Truck Series behind the wheel of the number three Gearhart Timber Services Chevrolet.

During the inversion dice roll, Szep rolled an eight. This would place Bobby Dale Earnhardt and Brad Yunker on the front row to start the Lincoln Welders 100. It is interesting to note that Jeff Myers Jr. did not make the inversion and would start the feature event from ninth.

Chad Poorman wasn’t the only driver making his return. He has had the longest absence of the drivers returning on Sunday, with his last event coming in 2013 at Lake County Speedway. Also making returns was Bobby Dale Earnhardt, which was his third event of 2015, and Stan “The Corn Man” Maitlen.

Dubbed “The Corn Man” from the corn he cooked “back in the day”, and as recently as this season, Stan Maitlen has been a regular in the ARCA Truck Series. He made his first start at Anderson Speedway in 1999, during the inaugural season. He would run eight straight seasons from 1999 to 2006, where he logged 82 starts and 27 top-tens. He made his return to the ARCA Truck Series in 2014 after a long absence.

In heat race action, Jeff Myers Jr. took the lead early from Stan Maitlen and led all eight laps en route to the heat race win. Brad Yunker would come from the tail of the field to take second. Following him to the front was Katlynn Leer. She wound up third.

Cody Quarrick would take the win in the second heat. He battled from the back of the pack to beat Chad Poorman and Billy Strehle for the win. In grabbing this win, he was able to offset the points gained by Jeff Myers Jr., who won his respected heat race.

The Lincoln Welders 100 feature event had Bobby Dale Earnhardt starting on the pole alongside Brad Yunker. Yunker took the lead early from Earnhardt, who got wrapped up in a battle for second with Brandon Huff. While Earnhardt and Huff fought for second, Yunker jumped out to a lead.

The caution flew early for the Gearhart Timber Services Chevrolet of Chad Poorman. The situation got very tense as the engine of Poorman’s Chevrolet let go in front of the pack, forcing the field to avoid him.

Following a brief pause in the action to clean up the track, Brad Yunker and Brandon Huff would lead the field back to the green to restart the race. Huff hung onto the outside and gave Yunker a run for the lead. After a few laps of side to side racing, Huff would edge Yunker at the line to lead a few laps.

It appeared Huff was going to take the lead from Huff, but his night ended on lap four when he made heavy contact with the backstretch wall. During the melee that ensued, a few drivers were forced to make quick decisions, one that saw Shawn Szep go through the infield and get some air after going through a culvert. The accident took Huff out for the evening, which also hurt his chances at any shot for the championship.

Szep would drive away after his adventure and rejoin the field. He would pit during the green, which would mean he had to restart on the tail of the field.

Yunker and Earnhardt would lead the field back to the second restart of the evening. Yunker would regain the lead and pull away from the field. Behind him Myers and Quarrick were making their way to the front. Following them was Shawn Szep.

The third and final caution would come out for a spinning Bobby Dale Earnhardt. The spin was a result of contact with 2015 Holley Performance Rookie of the Year Katlynn Leer. The incident would send Leer to the tail of the field, while Earnhardt would regain his spot back in second.

During the intermission, the inversion dice roll came up as a three. The inversion gave the lead back to Yunker, with Quarrick staying in second and Myers falling back to third. After climbing from ninth to take the lead in the first half of the race, coming from third for Myers didn’t seem like a hard task.

The truck to beat was Myers Jr., who posted the fastest times in the first half of the race. However, Quarrick wasn’t far behind him. Quarrick’s truck had faded away the longer the runs and event went on due to right rear brake issues. The team did what they thought was needed to address the issues during the intermission and had hopes of taking the win.

Yunker and Quarrick led the field to the green, but it was Quarrick taking the lead and jumping out to the lead early in the beginning of the second half. It took Myers a few laps to get around Yunker. Once he took over the second place, he set his sights on the number 6 of Quarrick and began to run him down.

It seemed that Quarrick was going to run away with the event. That was until his times began to drop off and it appeared like his truck developed a bad push off the turns. However, it wasn’t a push that Quarrick was fighting. The brake issue his team thought they solved had come back and he was unable to slow down entering the turns, causing him to nearly run through the wall off the turns.

On the restart, Earnhardt found himself out to dry after entering turn one to high and opening the door for Myers, Quarrick, and Szep. Once into second place, Myers set his sights on the leader Yunker. On lap 13 he got underneath him on the backstretch and would have the lead coming to lap 14.

After an eventful start to the Lincoln Welders 100, the rest of the first half went very smoothly. After gaining the lead, Myers would go onto lead the final 37 laps of the first segment, holding off Quarrick, Yunker, and Strehle.

It was the break Myers needed to run down Quarrick. Which is what he did.

With 35 laps remaining, Myers had closed in on Quarrick and two were nose to tail. Myers tried the inside many times off the turns, trying to get alongside of Quarrick to take the lead. Even with the issues, Quarrick held off his advances and maintained the lead.

After a few laps of hard racing between the leaders, Quarrick was able to pull away and once again appeared to have the lead locked down.

That secured lead only lasted about ten laps before Myers once again ran down Quarrick for the lead. Myers run to the front almost became thwarted by Bobby Dale Earnhardt when the two made contact. However, it was a very minor setback that didn’t stop him from getting to Quarrick.

The brake issues can be directly linked to keeping Quarrick from victory lane on Sunday. After a poor exit to turn two on lap 85, the door was left wide open for Myers to slip underneath him. Quarrick battled Myers into turn three, but was unable to continue it on the exit of four.

Once out front, the Todd’s Guns – SPEAR Motorsports Chevrolet would set sail and cruise to their fifth victory of 2015.

“I saw an opportunity (to pass) when I saw sparks flying and flames coming from that right rear,” said Myers about passing Quarrick. “This truck was unbelievable. It was glued to the bottom. I would like to thank my guys for this, they gave me a great truck tonight.”

The win will go a long way for the SPEAR Motorsports team, who came into the event trailing by 7 points to Cody Quarrick. The duo will have a small spread separating them when the series heads to Lake County Speedway in Painesville, Ohio on October 17th and 18th.

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