Chandler Smith led 199 of 200 laps en route to the victory in Saturday night’s Kentuckiana Ford Dealers Fall Classic 200 at Indiana’s Salem Speedway.
It marks the second career ARCA Racing Series victory for the Jasper, Georgia racer.
“This car was absolutely on rails tonight,” Smith said. “The guys on this team are the reason why. They busted their butts on pit road and got us out of the pits first every time. All the action was behind us. In a perfect world, they would all be like this.”
Smith held off Gus Dean in a one lap dash to the checkered after a slew of late race cautions bunched the field.
Chase Purdy finished third, with series points leader Sheldon Creed fourth and Travis Braden fifth.
Creed was able to add to his championship lead over Zane Smith, who was involved in a late-race crash and finished 18th.
“It was good for us because the car is in one piece and we added some points to the point lead,” Creed said. “I was proud of my teammate Zane. He did what he needed to do. You race people the way you want to be raced.”
Zane Smith got into the back of Michael Self and both crashed hard in turn four. The two had been involved in an incident earlier in the race. Smith pulled his car into the garage area where his MDM Motorsports team exchanged words with Self’s Venturini Motorsports crew.
Self was less than impressed with what happened.
“I guess some drivers don’t like to be raced hard,” Self said. “I’ve worked hard for everything I have. I am racing the last two so we’ll see how it works out.”
There were six cautions for 43 laps which held the average speed to 70.380 miles per hour. The race took 1 hour, 34 minutes, 37 seconds to complete.
The next event for the ARCA Racing Series event is the rescheduled Shore Lunch 200 at Lucas Oil Raceway in Brownsburg, Indiana on Saturday, October 6.
ARCA Racing Series
Salem Speedway – Salem, IN
Kentuckiana Ford Dealers Fall Classic 200 – September 15, 2018
1. Chandler Smith
2. Gus Dean
3. Chase Purdy
4. Sheldon Creed
5. Travis Braden
6. Harrison Burton
7. Christian Eckes
8. Natalie Decker
9. Riley Herbst
10. Will Kimmel
11. Joe Graf, Jr.
12. Mike Basham
13. Baden Stewart
14. Tyler Hill
15. Jack Dossey III
16. Michael Self
17. Ed Pompa
18. Zane Smith
19. Kaden Honeycutt
20. Brad Smith
21. Alex Clubb
22. Con Nicolopoulos
23. Eric Caudell
DNS: Wayne Peterson
