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Mitchell Grabs First ARCA Win
- Updated: July 21, 2014
Mason Mitchell visits victory lane for the first time in the ARCA Racing Series. [Russ Lake Photo]
“It was undescribable.”
Those words described the ARCA ACTIVARMR 150 race for winner Mason Mitchell, a 19-year-old driver who had finished second six times in his previous 13 ARCA runs.
Mitchell passed race leader Justin Boston on lap 95 Saturday at the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway to grab his first-ever ARCA win.
“That’s usually the time when we lose the lead,” admitted the West Des Moines, Iowa driver who took over the series’ points lead from seventh- place finisher Grant Enfinger. “I have the points’ lead now-finally.”
Mitchell, who made his ARCA debut in 2013, took to the high groove in pursuit of Boston, hoping to find a spot that would suit the handling of his family-owned Thermal Technology Services Ford.
“I couldn’t make it work on the bottom, and that’s where Justin seemed to run best. I had to move up, move up, to find better grip,” explained the youngster who started ninth in the 26-car field.
Boston, who led for 22 laps in his ZLOOP Toyota, could only watch as Mitchell passed on the backstretch and pulled away to a 0.795- second win.
“Mason drove a perfect last ten laps,” noted Boston who began racing full-bodied stock cars in 2013. “Our car was tight at the end.”
Matt Tifft, in a Ken Schrader-owned Chevrolet finished third followed by Will Kimmel and Cody Coughlin.
Spencer Gallagher, whose Alamo Rent-A-Car Chevrolet started on the front row next to fast qualifier John Wes Townley, led 70 laps before losing the lead to Boston on lap 73. Gallagher, who dropped to sixth at the finish due to handling problems, and Will Kimmel, were the only other race leaders.
Townley, who also drove in the evening’s NASCAR Nationwide event, saw his race end on lap 24 when his Zaxby’s Toyota slammed hard into the turn 3 wall after experiencing tire problems.
Six caution flags, five in the first 50 laps, slowed Mitchell’s winning speed to 109.980 mph.
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”