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Championship Battle Stays Out of Focus Headed to DuQuoin

www.arcaracing.com August 20, 2019

The ARCA Menards Series championship picture is no clearer heading out of the Allen Crowe 100 presented by Lucas Oil as it was heading into it.

Michael Self (No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota), led the standings by 80 points over second place – and Venturini Motorsports teammate – Christian Eckes (No. 15 JBL Audio/Illinois Truck & Equipment Toyota) coming into the sixteenth race of the 2019 season.

Eckes, the defending race winner, seemed to have a slight advantage over Self at Springfield. He’d raced, and won, at the track and also has experience at DuQuoin as well, while Self had never raced on dirt before in his entire racing career.

But rather than previous experience allowing Eckes to close that points gap, Self did what he had done all season long to this point and won when even he said he shouldn’t have. Self’s win, his fourth of the season and seventh career victory, came in his first ever dirt track start putting him in the same class as 2009 Springfield winner Parker Kligerman as a winner in his first career start on dirt.

While Self did pull off a dominant win, it wasn’t without a little tension at the end. A long green flag run, 62 laps, came to an end on lap 94 as Ty Gibbs and Joe Graf, Jr. came together in turn four sending both around. Self’s huge lead, nearly four seconds, was erased and a green-white-checkered overtime finish was needed to decide it. Self faced pressure from Corey Heim (No. 22 Speedway Children’s Charities Ford) on the restart, but Heim got into the marbles in turns three and four and dropped towards the back of the top ten. That allowed Eckes, who had lurked towards the back of the top five all afternoon, to power through on the final lap and move to second. He crossed the line just about three-tenths of a second behind Self.

The win gives Self a little more breathing room in the run for the championship, but not much more. What was an 80-point gap going into Springfield is now a 105-point advantage headed to DuQuoin, meaning with four races remaining Eckes needs to average about five positions per race – unless he wins, and then it’s only about three positions per race – over Self over the final four races of the year to close the gap. As competitive as they have been with each other and the rest of the field, that may be tough to orchestrate.

For his part, Self is doing exactly what he said he would do. He’s not talking about points and he’s focused solely on winning races. He’ll need to stay laser-focused on victory lane if he’s going to keep a hard-charging Eckes behind him at tracks Eckes and crew chief Kevin Reed have had success at in the past. Once the series returns to pavement at Salem and Lucas Oil Raceway, those are two tracks Eckes won at in 2018. Self has a previous Salem victory, that coming earlier this season, so it should make the final four races of the season an absolute shootout for the title.

The next race for the ARCA Menards Series is the Southern Illinois 100 on Saturday night August 31. Practice starts at 2:30 pm CT, General Tire Pole Qualifying is set for 5:30 pm CT, and the race is set for 8 pm CT. The race will be televised live on MAVTV; ARCARacing.com will have live timing & scoring, live chat, and live track updates for registered users.