LEXINGTON, Ohio — One of Ty Gibbs’ streaks in the ARCA Menards Series ended Friday, when he failed to earn his sixth consecutive General Tire Pole Award and qualified second for the Dawn 150 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
But the 18-year-old driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota extended the more important streak and won his fourth ARCA Menards Series race in a row, again in dominating fashion.
Gibbs has now won five of the seven races the series has contested this season.
Friday’s Dawn 150 at Mid-Ohio marked the 1,500th ARCA Menards Series race, a milestone the race winner appreciated.
“It means a lot to win ARCA’s 1,500th race; it’s a wonderful series,” said Gibbs. “Overall, it was a really good day. We had to fight. Had a good restart and just took off from there.”
Gibbs this season also has won races at Phoenix Raceway, Kansas Speedway, Toledo Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Corey Heim, who logged the best time in Friday’s qualifying session to earn the first General Tire Pole Award of his career, lost the lead quickly.
It was only the beginning of a stretch of trouble for Heim.
Heim took the lead on a restart with 20 laps to go, but he was issued a pass-through penalty for jumping the green. While serving that pass-through, he was caught speeding on pit road and handed another penalty.
Heim finished seventh, his worst result of the year. But thanks to the point he earned for winning the General Tire Pole Award at Mid-Ohio, he still has a one-point lead on Gibbs in the championship standings through seven races.
“My Venturini Motorsports Camry today was really good,” said Heim. “We came a long way. We were a little off in practice. I feel like we could have competed for the win at the end there. Just unfortunate.”
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular Austin Hill finished second at Mid-Ohio in his fourth ARCA Menards Series start. He closed on Gibbs during the last green-flag run of the race before the eventual winner pulled away late.
Thad Moffitt finished third to tie his ARCA Menards Series high. NASCAR Xfinity Series regular Brandon Jones finished fourth ahead of Nick Sanchez in fifth.
The finish:
Ty Gibbs, Austin Hill, Thad Moffitt, Brandon Jones, Nick Sanchez, Stanton Barrett, Corey Heim, Kris Wright, Amout Kok, Kyle Sieg, Russ Lane, Drew Dollar, Tim Richmond, Owen Smith, Tony Cosentino, Brad Smith, Mark Green.