TOLEDO SPEEDWAY RACE REPORTS
JUSTIN LOFTON SECOND IN WILD FINISH!
Goess 14th; George 17th; Arpin 21st

Toledo, OH (May 17, 2009) – It was a caution filled day at Toledo Speedway as the yellow-flag hardly rested during the Menards 200 presented by Federated Car Care. The race finally went green Sunday, May 17th, as scheduled after back-to-back weekends of qualifying were cancelled, due to the inclement weather conditions, and Eddie Sharp Racing was ready for the flag to drop.

The rain had forced the ARCA RE/MAX Series to cancel qualifying Saturday afternoon and the field was lined up based on car owner points. Justin Lofton, driver of the No.6 Lofton Cattle Toyota Camry started the race in the second position. Teammate, Craig Goess, Jr. driver of the No. 81 Greenville Toyota Camry started in the 6th position, Tim George, Jr. driver of the No.2 Ruby Tuesday Toyota Camry would start in the 8th position, and Steve Arpin driver of the No. 20 Taylor Motorsports Toyota Camry would start in the 11th position.

George: "I think the No. 2 team and I had a turning point this weekend. ...and part of that may be because I found a fire inside.

Tim George Jr.:
Tim George Jr. racked up more knowledge and experience in the second short track event on the schedule and another strong finish as the driver of the No. 2 Ruby Tuesday Toyota finished seventeenth in Sunday’s race.

George Jr., started from ninth position after qualifying was rained-out and the field was set by current car owner points. 

Survival was the name of the game for this event as the race created sixteen caution periods for eighty six laps. The first, coming on lap five, when several cars made contact with one another, forcing George Jr. to take evasive maneuvers barely getting caught up with them, doing minor damage to the right front of the Ruby Tuesday No. 2.  The ESR team quickly assessed the damage on pit road and sent the No. 2 Toyota back to the track. Focused and aggressive, Tim overcame another obstacle when, due to the earlier damage, the hood popped up, forcing him to pit road once again for the repairs on lap 85.

Arpin 1 -Lofton 0: The two ESR drivers ran against each other on giant tricycles for Fan Day at the Toledo Mud Hens baseball game Friday night!

Steve Arpin:
When this past weekend’s ARCA RE/MAX Series action rolled into Toledo things were looking good for Steve Arpin in the Taylor Motorsports entry. The talented young Canadian racer made a special appearance Friday night at the Toldeo Mud Hens baseball game along with teammate Justin Loftin and legendary fellow racer Frank Kimmel.  The cross promotional event by Arpin and his rival ARCA drivers set the stage for the excitement which would take place on the track in Sunday afternoon’s Menards 200 at Toledo Speedway.

When rains washed out Saturday’s qualifying session, the starting lineup was gridded according to owner’s point standings and Arpin would take the green flag from the inside of row six. 

A broken axle cut Arpin's day short just 10 laps from a top-10 finish.

It didn’t take long for Arpin to race his Toyota Camry up through the field in an attempt to break into the top-five of the running order in the closing laps.  Unfortunately, with just tens laps remaining the day was cut short with a mechanical problem when the No. 20 car lost an axle.  Arpin went from running in the sixth position to finishing twenty-first, a disappointment for the entire team, but providing another learning experience as they prepare to move forward to the June 6th ARCA 200 at Pocono Raceway.

The next event for the ARCA RE/MAX Series will be the Pocono ARCA 200 at Pocono Raceway Saturday, June 6.

An unscheduled pit stop forced Justin Lofton to fight his way back to the front of the field.

Justin Lofton:
No 6 Lofton Cattle Camry driver Justin Lofton ran at the front much of the day then fought his way back to the front of the pack in the final laps to finish second, just two car lengths from winner Parker Kligerman.

"It would have gotten very interesting if we could have stretched that race out a little more," said Lofton. "But we ran out of time; congratulations to Parker. He did a really good job out there."

Lofton, who led 93 laps, made a late-race charge from the back of the pack after the Westmorland, California driver made an unscheduled pit stop inside of 50 laps from the finish.

"I thought I had a loose wheel but it turned out not to be. We'll take the second place finish; just hope the crew isn't getting too aggravated with me. I think we had the car to beat today."

Craig Goess:
After qualifying in the top 10, it appeared Craig Goess was going to cruise to a top-five finish. That changed coming to the white flag lap when a competitor appeared to retaliate against another driver, sweeping Goess up in the mess, trashing his car and relegating him to a 14th-place finish.

"We had a really good weekend up until turn three and four of the white-flag lap," said Goess. "We made a good pit stop and made an improvement on the car. We passed a bunch of cars and were running fifth."

Goess: "...we got caught up in some stuff that should not have ever happened."

Just a few laps from the end of the race, Goess was satisfied with where he thought he was going to finish. That was until he was caught up in a wreck he later found out was not an accident.

"(Paul) Menard, (Frank) Kimmel and I were running tight," explained Goess. "You couldn't have slipped a piece of paper between us. We had two green-white-checkered restarts. I guess Menard roughed up (Patrick) Sheltra early in the race and his car got pretty messed up, so he (Sheltra) was a ton of laps down. They (his crew) fixed his car well enough for him to come back out and do the old "Cole Trickle" move at the end, except they didn't wait until the checkered flag was thrown.

"We were coming through three and four. Sheltra drifted up high, so I stayed low behind Kimmel, protecting my spot since I knew the #32 (Matt Merrell) was right behind me. All of a sudden Sheltra took a hard left into Menard. The #32 ran in the back of me, Kimmel crossed up and we went straight up to the wall. We nosed in, then whiplash tail-slapped the wall. It destroyed the car over someone else's problem."

Destroying his race car was one problem, but for Goess, it was a matter of principle, respect and the way he tried to avoid contact the whole night, only to be swept up in something that he felt was uncalled for.

"It was very disappointing and a disgusting way to finish out a race. We put ourselves in a good position and kept our noses clean the whole race. We dodged a bunch of wrecks that were close calls and we had a solid top five that got completely extinguished because we got caught up in some stuff that should not have ever happened."

Toledo, OH (May 16, 2009) – ARCA Officials have made alterations to scheduled on-track activities for Saturday's ARCA RE/MAX Series race at Toledo Speedway due to intermittent rain showers in the area.

Qualifying for the ARCA RE/MAX Series has been cancelled. Sunday's Menards 200 presented by Federated Car Care starting line-up will be set based on current year Owners' Points.

Justin Lofton holds the Qualifying Record at Toledo Speedway with a 15.860 second, 113.493 mph lap in 2008

Live timing and scoring and audio coverage of the Menards 200 race weekend will be available on arcaracing.com. Race fans who have an ARCA Nation account (free to join at http://www.arcanation.com/) can watch live streaming video coverage of the race.

TOLEDO SPEEDWAY
SHORT TRACK ACTION THIS WEEKEND!

Denver, North Carolina (May 13, 2009) – Eddie Sharp Racing will head to Toledo, Ohio this weekend to take on the paved half mile semi-banked oval at the Toledo Speedway, for the Menards 200 presented by Federated Car Care. The ESR teams will see short-track action this Sunday afternoon for the first time since going to the Salem Speedway in early April.

Kentucky Speedway

Justin Lofton and Steve Arpin will bring the excitement of stock car auto racing to the baseball field on Friday evening, May 15 as part of ARCA Racing Day at Fifth Third Field in downtown Toledo, Ohio, home of the Toledo Mud Hens Triple-A Baseball Team. Lofton and Arpin will give baseball fans a glimpse of their competitive nature Friday night when they race against each other on giant tricycles during an inning break.

"I'm hoping to use the tricycle race as a warm-up for Sunday's ARCA RE/MAX Series race at Toledo," said Lofton. "Rubbin' is racing and Steve [Arpin] is in for a surprise if he thinks I'm going to go easy on him just because he is my teammate. I'm in it to win it!"

Eddie Sharp Racing has a history of coming home with great finishes at Toledo Speedway and the foursome is hoping that one of them can add their name to the illustrious list this weekend. In 2007, Ken Butler, III won the first race at the .5 mile oval located in northwest Ohio and Michael McDowell won the second for an Eddie Sharp Racing sweep of the Toledo Speedway!

After a strong finish last weekend at the Kentucky Speedway leading 43 of 100 laps and finishing in second place, driver of the No. 6 Lofton Cattle Toyota Camry, Justin Lofton currently sits in first place in the ARCE RE/MAX series driver point Standings. Craig Goess, Jr., driver of the No. 81 Greenville Toyota Camry sits in the sixth position, Tim George, Jr., driver of the No.2 Ruby Tuesday Toyota Camry in 7th, and Steve Arpin, driver of the No.20 Taylor Motorsports Toyota Camry is in 9th position.