Despite a one-day postponement, not even Mother Nature could slow down Max Reaves, who scored his second career victory in the ARCA Menards Series East race at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on Sunday, May 4.
Reaves scored his second career win in just his second career start of the season. In his first two starts, Reaves has led 239 of 300 laps.
Tyler Reif came home with a runner-up effort, followed by the No. 95 of Hunter Wright in third, who started the race from the back of the field. Series points leader Isaac Kitzmiller finished fourth after a furious battle with Wright in the waning stages, with Zachary Tinkle rounding out the top five.
Post-race, Reif lamented not having enough to run down Reaves to make the battle for the win more interesting.
“Not on a long run wise I think just with better car knowledge and more car control that if we had a late race restart, we definitely would’ve won but the car was really good,” Reif stated post-race. “Have to give credit to the team and Max. They do a good job and their baseline is good every week, so we did a good job, we were really consistent we just need a little more speed. I’m glad I executed on my restarts and got the lead when I could, it just wasn’t enough.”
Jackson McLerran, Takuma Koga, Becca Monopoli, Quinn Davis and Nate Moeller completed the top 10 finishers.
Making his debut in the ARCA East Series was Jeffrey Maconi, finishing in the 12th position of the 16-car field.
It was a near perfect weekend for the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 car, after winning practice and starting from pole position after qualifying was cancelled due to inclement weather, the 15-year-old driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota Camry led a race high 147 of the 150 laps contested at the 0.596-mile short track.
From the drop of the green flag, it seemed as though the only driver to keep any sort of pace with Reaves was Reif, who briefly took control of the race following the day’s first yellow flag on lap 16. Despite that, Reaves quickly reestablished himself as the car to beat taking the lead back and setting an incredible pace, leaving all but four drivers on the lead lap at the mid-race break caution on lap 75.
After the break, Reaves once again held off all challenges from a hard-charging Reif and drove off to become the third driver in the history of the ARCA East Series to win their first two starts in their career, joining Austin Cindric and Will Rodgers according to the FloRacing broadcast.
ARCA Menards Series East Music City 150 Results
The ARCA Menards Series East’s next stop on the schedule is Flat Rock Speedway on May 17 for the Dutch Boy 150. Race coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. ET and can be found on FloRacing.
