ARCA
Sorenson claims win at Michigan
Reed Sorenson inherited the pole and then cruised to a dominant win in the ARCA Flagstar 200 at Michigan International Speedway. Sorenson, making just his second career ARCA start, paced the field to the green flag after Justin Hobgood, who was ...
Published: Jun 20, 2004, 3:20 PM
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Reed Sorenson inherited the pole and then cruised to a dominant win in the ARCA Flagstar 200 at Michigan International Speedway.
Sorenson, making just his second career ARCA start, paced the field to the green flag after Justin Hobgood, who was the top qualifier on Friday, was moved to the back of the field for being late for inspection.
Sorenson held the lead until pitting under caution on lap 17. He reclaimed it on lap 59 and built up a seven second margin over Matt Hagans in the closing laps.
Sorenson is driving a limited ARCA schedule for Nextel Cup team owner Chip Ganassi, who also won the event last June with Casey Mears at the wheel.
"It feels good," said Sorenson, a regular in the ASA series and former Quarter Midget national champion. "We set our goal to win when we came here. I've always put a lot of pressure on myself to win."
Hagans, who led 18 laps, was impressed with Sorenson's performance.
"You have to give a lot of credit to someone who has never been here before," said Hagans, who is running a limited schedule in the series in his own car. "You have to give credit to the Cup team, good pits and everything, but the driver still has to tell the crew chief what the cars doing. You have to have a good driver and Reed's done a good job."
AJ Henriksen, Brent Sherman and Christi Passmore rounded out the top-5.
Points leader Frank Kimmel, who won at MIS in 1998, challenged for the lead late in the race but gave up track position to pit for new tires under caution with 24 laps to go. Three laps after the restart, Kimmel ran over debris on the track and was forced to pit again. He finished 10th.
There was a scary moment on lap 22 when rookie driver Chad McCumbee flipped several times between turns 1 and 2. CW Smith, who was making his first start in the ARCA series, checked up and got into the wall in turn 1. McCumbee barreled into his left rear and then flipped six times down the banking of the track. The race was red-flagged while the track crew cleaned up the speedway. Neither driver was hurt.
"We were just riding, trying to get a race under my belt," said McCumbee, who recently played Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the ESPN movie The Dale Earnhardt Story. "The accident looked worse than it was. Once I started flipping, I just waited for it to be over."
Jason Jarrett was involved in an incident on lap 17 that brought out the second of six yellow flags during the 100-lap event. Hobgood was running eighth when his left rear tire blew. His car started to spin and collected Jarrett,
"This is always one of the most frustrating places for me," said Jarrett, who will celebrate Father's Day at MIS watching his dad Dale Jarrett compete in the Michigan 400. "I saw smoke coming from the #50 car (Hobgood) and tried to go around him on the outside but I just couldn't get by him."
Former NFL coach Jerry Glanville made his return to the ARCA series after being injured at Kentucky last year. He was in the top-10 most of the day before getting tapped from behind in turn 2. He spun and finished 23rd.
The race will be broadcast tonight on Speed (8:00 p.m. Eastern).
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