Faced with an overtime restart, Brent Crews did not disappoint. He led all 102 laps to win the ARCA Menards Series race at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds on Sunday (Sept. 1) night.
Crews picked up his second career ARCA win, earning his first in 2023 at another dirt track: Illinois State Fairgrounds.
For Venturini Motorsports, it is the organization’s third victory in the national division. Crews was the top runner for VMS, which placed four of its five drivers inside the top 10.
William Sawalich finished second, ending his winning streak at four. Sawalich’s average finish of 1.5 on the two dirt tracks netted him the $7,500 Performance Seed Dirt Double prize as the driver with the best average finish, though he failed to sweep the two dirt events.
Points leader Andres Perez finished third followed by Kris Wright in fourth and Kelly Kovski in fifth.
Lavar Scott and Taylor Reimer rounded out the lead-lap finishers in sixth and seventh with Christian Rose, Toni Breidinger and Tim Monroe completing the top 10 in eighth through 10th, respectively.
The 100-lap race was fairly clean as the only cautions were for single-car incidents. Most notably, Amber Balcaen’s late-race spin, with five to go, sent the race into overtime and she brought home a damaged No. 22 Toyota.
Per series rules, all dirt track restarts with less than 10 laps to go are single-file. Sawalich gave it a valiant effort, especially off turn 4 on the final lap, but he could not catch Crews, who took VMS back to victory lane at DuQuoin for the first time since 2019.
ARCA DuQoin Results
After finishing its dirt track slate, ARCA will next complete its road course races when it visits Watkins Glen International. The Glen will host the series on Friday, Sept. 13 with TV coverage starting at 5 p.m. ET provided by FOX Sports 1.
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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