Venturini Motorsports brought fast Toyotas to Irwindale Speedway on Thursday (July 4). The team swept the podium in the first race of the doubleheader at the short track with reigning ARCA Menards Series West champion Sean Hingorani picking up his first win of the 2024 season.
Isabella Robusto closed in to within one car length behind Hingorani but she ultimately wound up second, tying her career-best finish in the ARCA platform. Jake Finch finished third in his second West start of the season.
Hingorani started shotgun on the field and took the lead immediately. Although Robusto made a fierce charge up front, she was unable to take the lead and Hingorani led all 150 laps.
It’s his first win of the 2024 season and fifth of his career. In addition, it’s his second triumph at Irwindale.
“Yeah, it was really fast,” Hingorani told track promoter Tim Huddleston on FloRacing post-race. “Had to work for it there at the end. Congrats to Isabella, she was rolling. Dominant all race, thanks to Kevin Reed Sr. for coming out. Know that he didn’t have to do this but made it happen so really thankful for all my guys and this thing was really fast.
“I want to say thanks to all you fans. Packed stands, this is a really great show that Tim puts on so just really excited to be at Irwindale, my home track, and be able to get back to victory lane here.”
Robusto’s runner-up showing matched her result set earlier this year in the ARCA Menards Series East race at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
“This was the first time that I was here at Irwindale Speedway,” she said post-race. “It’s a really cool racetrack but I definitely learned every lap there today so I think coming back on Saturday I’ll have a really good baseline on what to kind of fire off at and hopefully get this JBL Camry back on the podium but also get the pole and the win.”
She’ll seek to become the third female winner in West series history on Saturday at Irwindale.
Finch meanwhile came up two spots shy in his bid to achieve victory in all three ARCA divisions. He scored his first career national tour win earlier in 2024 at Talladega Superspeedway.
“Yeah, not too bad,” he added post-race. “I felt like it was a little behind the eight-ball where we started and couldn’t really see crap through the sun and had stuff on my windshield. But you know nonetheless a good run just wish we could’ve been a little bit better there at the end and had a little more track position so I guess I just need to be a little bit better on Saturday qualifying-wise. But you know other than that, good run for Venturini and top three is pretty solid so come back Saturday and hope to be two spots better and put on a show.”
Trevor Huddleston finished fourth followed by pole sitter Tyler Reif in fifth. With Hingorani’s victory, Reif unofficially now has a three-point advantage over Hingorani.
Jaron Giannini debuted to a sixth-place finish with Nick Joanides, Kyle Keller, Takuma Koga and Todd Souza rounding out the top-10 finishers in seventh through 10th, respectively.
The two caution flags in the 150-lap race were for single-car incidents. Kole Raz, who won earlier this season at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway, brought out the first caution when smoke came out of his No. 5 Toyota. And then later in the race, Jack Wood backed his car into the wall coming out of turn 3. Raz wound up with a 17th-place DNF and Wood soldiered on to finish eight laps down in 14th.
ARCA West Results from Irwindale
The West field stays at Irwindale for its second race of the weekend there on Saturday, July 6. That race will begin at 10 p.m. ET with live coverage provided by FloRacing.
About the author
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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Isabella will be next Hailie Deegan ;but better.
enduro121T@gmail.com Hopefully she WON’T be another Hailie, she is terrible !