On Sunday (Aug. 27), William Sawalich dominated the Sprecher 150 and held off Jesse Love on a late-race restart en route to his second career national ARCA victory.
The Sprecher 150 was a combination race between the main series and the ARCA Menards Series East, so Sawalich extended his East points lead with his third career East victory.
The No. 18 team has been dominant in ARCA Menards Series competition at the Milwaukee Mile, as the team went to victory lane for the third straight year in Milwaukee.
“It’s not too bad,” Sawalich told FS1 in victory lane about maintaining his composure when he lost the lead on the last restart. “It really makes it easy when they give me such a great racecar. This Starkey/Sound Gear Toyota Camry was on rails today. I can’t really thank them enough.
“I don’t know, just trying to get him out of my way,” he added about his race-winning move on Love. “I knew I was faster so it was just a matter of time when I would get there to pass him and be smart about it.”
Love finished second, increasing his massive main series points lead. He had no problem with Sawalich’s move for the win.
“I’m not really sure,” Love said post-race about what he needed to win. “We just lacked a lot of that raw speed that he had a lot of. Hats off to him, he did a good job. Run me hard but he run me clean too so I’m fine with everything that transpired and hats off to him. Wish we had a little bit more for him. Thought in clean air maybe I could hold him at bay, but still, he was able to turn under even in dirty air.
“Hopefully next time we can get back to victory lane. [..] This is a place we’ve really struggled the past few years, and Shannon and I’s goal this year was to not suck. I think we didn’t suck today; the No. 18 was really good, and we’ll go back to work. I knew I could run behind him and found a few things we were doing so hopefully when we go back to the shop, we can hit on that.”
Love’s Venturini Motorsports teammates Sean Hingorani and Conner Jones finished third and fourth, respectively, followed by NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular Grant Enfinger in fifth.
The 150-lap race at the 1-mile racetrack was fairly clean as only one driver, Ron Vandermeir Jr., ended up with his racecar on the wrecker.
Still, late contact between Jones and Luke Fenhaus led to a post-race incident between Fenhaus’ crew chief Shane Huffman and Jones.
Fenhaus finished sixth, losing valuable points to Sawalich in the East championship battle. The East season has only one race left at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Among the main series regulars, other than Love in second, only Andres Perez de Lara wound up with a top 10 in seventh. Notably, Christian Rose and Frankie Muniz both failed to finish on the lead lap in 11th and 12th, respectively.
ARCA Results from Milwaukee
ARCA heads to the 1-mile DuQuoin State Fairgrounds dirt track for Labor Day weekend. That race will take place on Sunday, Sept. 3 at 9 p.m. ET, with live coverage provided by FS2 and FloRacing.
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.
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