When the dust of the 2021 ARCA Menards Series season settles, we might look back on Saturday’s Sioux Chief PowerPEX 200 presented by Scott County Tourism at Indiana’s Salem Speedway as the race that decided the series championship.
Yet the driver who stole the show on the half-mile paved oval is not a title contender — not in this series, at least.
Jesse Love, the 16-year-old defending ARCA Menards Series West champion from Menlo Park, California, won his first ARCA Menards Series race Saturday at Salem. And he did so in impressive fashion, beating Ty Gibbs on a late restart and keeping the ARCA Menards Series championship points leader in his mirror for the last 45 laps.
It was Gibbs, though, who left Salem with a championship. He clinched the 2021 Sioux Chief Showdown title over rival Corey Heim.
The question is whether Gibbs’ second-place run at Salem was enough for him to also clinch the overall ARCA Menards Series championship with one race remaining.
Salem Speedway: Race Recap | Race Highlights
Jesse Love’s arrival
Love’s strong run at Salem did not come out of nowhere. Prior to Saturday, the driver of the No. 15 Mobil 1 Toyota for Venturini Motorsports had logged six top-five finishes in 13 ARCA Menards Series starts.
The surprise came in the way Love pulled off the win.
Toward the end of a race in which Gibbs had led every lap without much of a challenge, on four fresh General Tires, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver chose the bottom lane on a restart thinking he’d have the necessary grip. He did not — at least not enough to keep Love in tow.
Love maintained his momentum perfectly through Turns 1-2 and jumped ahead of Gibbs on the backstretch. He then completed the pass for the lead in Turns 3-4. The totality of the sequence was voted the Reese’s Sweet Move of the Race from Salem.
Perhaps more impressive than Love’s passing Gibbs was the Californian’s poise in maintaining the lead over the final 40-plus laps. Gibbs applied pressure, but Love never made a mistake.
“After (the pass), it was ‘run like heck,'” Love said. “I did all I could to keep (Gibbs) behind me. Ty’s one of the best right now, and it feels good to beat him.”
Added Gibbs: “I felt like we just got too tight. I chose the bottom; I felt like it was going to be the better call on newer tires, the shorter way around, with more grip. I just messed up. We got in the dirty air, which kind of made it even tighter.”
Love, the West Series regular who holds the championship points lead in that series with two races remaining, has a top-10 finish in each of the 10 ARCA Menards Series races he has entered in 2021.
That includes one AMS-West combination event, at Phoenix Raceway in March. His other nine starts came as a VMS team member with Kevin Reed atop the pit box.
This is what VMS imagined when it signed Love for a part-time ARCA Menards Series schedule in 2021.
RELATED: Updated ARCA Menards Series points
Ty Gibbs (likely) locks up ARCA Menards Series championship
Gibbs had no problem Saturday securing his first championship on the ARCA Menards Series platform. He needed to finish 17th or better to win the 2021 Sioux Chief Showdown title, and he ran second.
Thanks to that finish coupled with Heim’s seventh-place effort, Gibbs likely will have no problem securing his second championship when the series heads to Kansas Speedway for the season finale in two weeks.
The scenarios will depend on the car count for the Reese’s 150 at Kansas (Saturday, Oct. 23, 7 p.m. ET on MAVTV and TrackPass). The entry list will be released the Tuesday prior to the race.
Gibbs carries a 34-point lead over Heim in the standings. Bonus points will be in play, so Gibbs needs to finish 29th or better to clinch the title regardless of what Heim does. If 29 or fewer cars enter the Kansas race, Gibbs will simply need to take the green flag to clinch the championship. Any more entries would open the door for Heim should Gibbs experience a disastrous finish.
Considering the dominance Gibbs has displayed in the ARCA Menards Series this season, leading a mind-boggling 1,590 laps through 19 events, Heim even having a chance to win the title at this point is impressive.
The Venturini Motorsports driver leaned on his consistency to go toe-to-toe with Gibbs in the title battle, but the separation took place over the last four races.
Your 2021 @siouxchief Showdown champion: @TyGibbs_ pic.twitter.com/SDqv0a979e
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) October 3, 2021
Gibbs won at the Milwaukee Mile in August and at Bristol Motor Speedway last month. He also finished second at both the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds a month ago and at Salem on Saturday. Heim’s finishes in those races: sixth, seventh, fifth and seventh.
As if Gibbs’ wins weren’t beneficial enough, he collected all six available bonus points at both Milwaukee and Bristol. He added three bonus points at Salem for qualifying on the General Tire Pole, leading a lap and leading the most laps.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, the result will be the ARCA Menards Series championship the 19-year-old has been chasing all season.
Rajah Caruth makes history
Rev Racing has already announced Rajah Caruth will race the full 2022 ARCA Menards Series schedule after running full-time in the East Series this season. The team hopes Saturday’s race at Salem was a preview of what’s to come.
Caruth, the 19-year-old rookie from Washington, D.C., set a new ARCA Menards Series career high with his third-place run at Salem. It also matches his career best in East Series competition.
And yet, Caruth appeared dejected after the race, a sign of his ultra-competitive nature.
“I struggled in practice,” Caruth allowed after the race. “To be able to get up to third, I feel like it’s pretty good. It is annoying to see (Love and Gibbs) get away there.
“I was doing everything I could. But to finish third is not that bad.”
The third-place finish was not just a new career high for Caruth; it marked the best finish for a Caribbean-American driver in ARCA Menards Series history.
Caruth’s accomplishment was noticed throughout the racing world, including in Talladega, Alabama.
Bubba Wallace, the NASCAR Cup Series driver who has been a mentor to Caruth and, like Caruth, a product of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity development program, won his first Cup Series race Monday at Talladega Superspeedway. After his victory, Wallace noted Caruth’s run at Salem and the impact it had on his mindset.
“It’s ironic,” Wallace said. “I was sitting in the bus last night, and the ARCA Menards Series race (replay) was on at Salem. I already knew that Rajah had finished third, but I was sitting there watching him, I was like, ‘Damn, that’s a really good run for him.’
“So I was proud of him, but it was just ironic how I was watching him and got pumped up for how well he ran there, and then I win today. Do I give him credit for brining me good mojo? Eh, if that makes him feel better, I’ll give him some.
“But the (NASCAR Drive for Diversity) program continues to shine. I still continue to say, without that deal in 2010-11, I don’t know if I’d be here.”
How it started ➡️ how it’s going
Congrats to @BubbaWallace on his first @NASCAR Cup Series win! pic.twitter.com/EyAtggTPQz
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) October 4, 2021
Notes
- Love at Salem became the 347th different race winner in ARCA Menards Series history.
- Gibbs became the seventh champion in the Sioux Chief Showdown’s seven-year history.
- Gibbs led all Showdown drivers with a 1.70 average finish, more than two full positions better than second-place Heim, who registered a 3.90 average finish.
- Gibbs and Heim were the only two drivers who finished in the top 10 in all 10 Showdown events.
- Gibbs led 1,121 laps in Showdown competition, 864 more than Heim.
- Gibbs also completed 100 percent of the 1,638 possible laps in Showdown competition this season.
- The Salem race was ARCA’s throwback event for 2021, and veteran driver Will Kimmel won the prestigious Jack Harrison Trophy for the best appearing throwback design with his Charlie Glotzbach tribute on his No. 69 Clarksville Schwinn Toyota. Harrison was the first ARCA Menards Series winner at Salem back in 1955. Kimmel, in his 125th career series start, went on to finish fourth in the race, his first top-five finish of the season and his first since he finished fifth on the Springfield Mile in 2018.
- Gracie Trotter used a well-timed caution to rejoin the lead lap early in the race. The 20-year-old then used some needed chassis adjustments to race her way to her second career top-five finish with a fifth-place result at Salem.
- Mason Mingus finished sixth, his best ARCA Menards Series finish since he finished fifth at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway in 2017.
- Jean-Philippe Bergeron finished eighth in his ARCA Menards Series debut driving the No. 46 Ford for David Gilliland Racing.
- Five-time USAC Silver Crown champion and current series point leader Kody Swanson finished ninth in his first start of 2021 driving for GMS Racing. Swanson carried a throwback scheme honoring GMS president Mike Beam’s win as a crew chief with Ricky Craven at Darlington in 2003. Swanson will look to clinch the 2021 Silver Crown championship on Oct. 10 at Toledo Speedway.
- Ken Schrader finished 10th at Salem, his second top-10 finish in two starts in 2021.
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