PENSACOLA, Fla. — The season-opening event for the ARCA Menards Series East, the Pensacola 150 at Five Flags Speedway on Saturday (March 22), saw Connor Mosack and Pinnacle Racing Group score a fourth-place finish.
At face value, the top-five finish can be ruled as a solid run for Mosack and crew, but the result leaves unanswered questions as to what might’ve been had the PRG No. 28 Chevrolet not been a victim of contact and a cut tire to go along with it.
While battling for the lead with 15-year-old Max Reaves, the pair of drivers entered turn 3 on a restart while battling side by side. Reaves made significant contact with the left side of Mosack’s car upon entering the corner, resulting in a cut tire for Mosack that sent him for a spin shortly thereafter.
Trouble for one of the front runners!
— Chase Folsom (@cfolsom_racing) March 23, 2025
Connor Mosack spins with a flat left rear after contact racing for the lead😱@ARCA_Racing @Frontstretch pic.twitter.com/1ztfTRHlgV
“I had a good launch, and I felt like that was my best chance to get a good pass on [Reaves],” Mosack told Frontstretch post-race. “I tried to just hold him down as tight as I could, still feel like I left him enough room. All of a sudden, I felt a shot in the left rear. I don’t know if he just turned right into me or had an issue, but ultimately that cut our left rear down and killed our night.”
The inopportune incident sent Mosack on a trip down pit road to repair the damage. However, the night was not over just yet for the North Carolina native. Upon fixing the damage and being sent back on track, Mosack returned to the race a lap down while approaching a scheduled caution for the halfway break. The aforementioned break indeed came, granting Mosack a spot back on the lead lap as the free pass car.
Back on the lead lap and fueled with a racer’s desire to get to the front, Mosack faced his next obstacle: lapped traffic.
Large speed discrepancies led to lead=lap cars approaching slower lapped cars at exponentially faster speeds, leading to tense and sketchy moments that were often difficult for the drivers to navigate.
Despite the new hindrance in his march to the front, Mosack salvaged a fourth-place finish on the day, finishing behind race winner Reaves, runner-up Kole Raz and third-place finisher Tyler Reif.
Mosack spoke on navigating the lapped traffic and how it made his march to the front even more difficult than he would have preferred. He also expressed interest in more strict rulings from the sanctioning body on minimum speed requirements.
“At places like Bristol where there’s a 40 mile-an-hour difference — and here too — it’d be nice if [lapped cars] gave you the bottom, the preferred groove, instead of going around them and getting your tires dirty every time you pass them,” he added. “It can be a little frustrating. If there’s some kind of minimum speed that people could meet that was reasonable, I think everyone would be in favor of that.”
Mosack also spoke on how the final run of the race might have played more into his favor had it not been an extended green-flag run.
“If we would’ve had a caution there, we might’ve had a shot,” he continued. “Definitely made a good change at the halfway break and liked the car that we had.”
Mosack returns to his full-time job racing his No. 81 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Martinsville Speedway. As for ARCA East, Mosack said he will likely join the field for its next race at Rockingham Speedway. That event will be broadcast live on FloRacing at 1:30 p.m. ET.
