Reed Wins ARCA At Chicagoland

Ryan Reed celebrates at Chicagoland after winning the ARCA Racing Series Scott 150. [Russ Lake Photo]

Ryan Reed beat the rain and points leader Grant Enfinger Saturday night to win the Scott 150 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards at the Chicagoland Speedway.

Reed, a regular in the NASCAR Xfinity Series led the final 70 laps in his Lilly Diabetes-MOMO Ford after starting 28th due to a mistake in qualifying. He was in the top 10 by lap 15 and second at lap 20.

“My job was easy-I kind of cruised once I got to the front,” Reed explained. “It was my car to mess up, which I tried to do in qualifying.”

Reed used the early part of the race to work his way to the front as four cautions periods during the first 25 laps bunched the field, allowing him to catch leader Will Kimmel by lap 31.

Reed, a California native who now resides in North Carolina, was to race the NASCAR Xfinity portion of the evening’s doubleheader for Roush Fenway Racing, but a violent rainstorm postponed that race until Sunday morning. But with Roush at his side during the post-race interview, the winner had some words of appreciation.

“I’d like to thank Jack for letting me go and drive this thing. It was a lot of fun.” Reed captured his first Xfinity win at Daytona in February, his first after being told by doctors four years ago that he had Type 1 diabetes and would likely never race again.

Enfinger maintained his series’ points lead by finishing second after starting fifth and dropping out of the top 10 due to an ill-handling car.

“They were the class of the field at the end and better than us at the start. We made some big changes on our pit stop and they all worked,” noted Enfinger who pitted his Alamo Chevrolet on lap 65 and had worked his way back to fifth by lap 80. “We could have used one more adjustment at the end. I was hoping for a late-race caution so I could have raced for the lead but second place is a great finish for us.”

Will Kimmel, who led 26 laps, was third followed by Matt Tifft and veteran Frank Kimmel. Pole-winner Cody Coughlin led the first four circuits but was involved in an incident with Tifft and finished 26th.

So with Roush on his left and first-year ARCA team-owner Carlos Lira on his right during the post-race press conference, Roush told a story of what advice Lira gave to Reed after his qualifying spin; advice that paid off later during his run to the front . “Ryan did a great job,” Roush noted. “Carlos gave him some advice after he wrecked in qualifying. He told him that he needed to proceed tonight like a mouse chasing cheese; just a little bit at a time.”

“Ryan is a very good driver,” Lira added. “We are very, very happy for him.”

Paul Gohde

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.”

racingnation.com

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