Chandler Smith, driver of the #20 JBL Toyota, loses control after he was bumped by Bret Holmes, driver of the #23 Holmes II Excavation Chevrolet, during the Zinsser SmartCoat 200 for the ARCA Menards Series at I-44 Speedway in Lebanon, Missouri on September 5, 2020. (Jeff Curry/ARCA Racing)
Chandler Smith, driver of the #20 JBL Toyota, spins after he was bumped by Bret Holmes, driver of the #23 Holmes II Excavation Chevrolet, during the Zinsser SmartCoat 200 for the ARCA Menards Series at I-44 Speedway in Lebanon, Missouri on September 5, 2020. (Jeff Curry/ARCA Racing)

ARCA Menards Rewind: What We Learned at Lebanon I-44

www.arcaracing.com September 7, 2020

Bent fenders, hard feelings, and championship points swings.

The inaugural trip to Missouri’s Lebanon I-44 Speedway for the ARCA Menards Series had a little bit of everything from a classic short-track Saturday night.

Sam Mayer walked away with his third series win of the season and the Sioux Chief Showdown championship lead for the first time. Everyone else left with more questions than answers.

Here’s what we learned from the Zinsser SmartCoat 200 at Lebonon I-44.

Zinsser SmartCoat 200: Results | Race Recap | Photo Gallery

Hailie Deegan vs. Bret Holmes

Together they combined to lead 154 of 200 laps, and dominated nearly all the post-race discussion.

More to the point, the Lap 69 pass for the lead by Deegan was the primary point of contention.

“I wouldn’t call it typical short track nonsense, I’d just call it a lack of respect,” Holmes said after the race. “I think some drivers don’t understand what it’s like to run their own team and have to pay for their own stuff. And race people and have to knock them out of the way every time they take the lead, and I don’t have to race that way. I can pass clean and do it the right way.”

Deegan chalked it up as a learning experience.

“It’s a little difficult track to pass at,” said Deegan, who spun after contact with Ty Gibbs on the white-flag lap and finished fifth. “There weren’t really any spots where you could make passes without it really getting dirty here and there with people wrecking, and it was going both ways. I can’t be mad about the end because I did the same thing to other people — not on purpose, on accident — just because you’re trying to finish the pass and it doesn’t work and you get a little loose on the bottom.”

It was especially frustrating for Holmes, as he came up one point shy of catching Michael Self for the ARCA Menards Series points lead with his third runner-up finish of the season.

“This is the best short track car I’ve ever had,” said Holmes. “We had the best car today. We should have won it.”

Around and around we go

The Holmes-Deegan dust-up wasn’t the only entanglement of the night.

Deegan got into Chandler Smith early in the event in a battle for fifth, Holmes sent Smith around trying to get by when Smith wasn’t on the lead lap, and Kris Wright and Self went into the grass just before the second race break.

After picking up his second win of the season at the DAYTONA Road Course, Self finished 15th at WWT Raceway at Gateway and then sixth at Lebanon I-44 after a myriad of in-race issues.

Self wasn’t the only points leader with issues.

Chandler Smith’s return to racing continues to be an up-and-down affair. After winning at Phoenix Raceway back in February, Smith was runner-up at Pocono Raceway and winner at Lucas Oil Raceway. But he was also knocked out of the race with mechanical issues after leading 103 laps at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway, rallied to finish second in the second Toledo race, struggled through the DAYTONA Road Course to a ninth-place finish, and bounced back to finish second at Gateway.

And the Smith endured a number of calamities at Lebanon I-44.

Or, as Smith’s crew chief Billy Venturini put it: “Rough night. Got wrecked, and then wrecked, and then wrecked and then wrecked. Now we’re going home.”

This one probably isn’t over, either.

Smith’s eighth-place finish dropped him into a tie for second with Ty Gibbs in the Sioux Chief Showdown points, five behind Sam Mayer.

UPDATED: Sioux Chief Showdown Standings After Lebanon I-44

The Sioux Chief Showdown will be part of the Bush’s Beans 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sept. 17 before the champion is crowned in the Sioux Chief Power PEX 200 at Tennessee’s Memphis International Speedway on Sept. 26.

Quiet Podium Finishes

For all the in-race drama, Mayer and Taylor Gray quietly continued their successful 2020 runs.

Mayer earned his fourth overall win in the last six races, including his ARCA Menards Series East victory at Dover International Speedway. His other two finishes were third-place runs. While he’s not running the full ARCA Menards Series season because of his age, the 17-year-old from Franklin, Wisconsin, leads both the Sioux Chief Showdown and ARCA Menards East standings.

Gray missed the first Sioux Chief Showdown race because he hadn’t turned 15 yet. Since, he’s collected five top-five finishes in seven starts, including his third-place at Lebanon I-44.

How’d he do it?

“Just being there at the end,” said Gray. “Just racing everybody as clean as I can.”

Notes

  • Deegan is the first female driver to lead the most laps in an ARCA Menards Series race since the 2000 season finale in at Atlanta Motor Speedway when Shawna Robinson led 66 laps. Deegan’s 85 laps led is also the most by a female in a race, eclipsing Robinson’s Atlanta total.
  • Kris Wright finished seventh, his first career top 10, in his second start for Chad Bryant Racing.
  • Tenth-place finisher Mike Basham scored his first top-ten finish since he also finished tenth at Springfield in 2016.
  • Dale Roper, brother of six-time ARCA Menards Series winner Dean Roper and himself a four-time Modified champion at I-44, was in attendance on Saturday night.