The ARCA RE/MAX series visited Pocono, Pennsylvania for the second time this season on Saturday for the running of the Pennsylvania ARCA 200. As consistent with the rest of the season, Mother Nature played yet another roll in this weekend’s race, allowing practice but raining out Friday afternoon’s qualifying session, yet again setting the field by owner’s points. “The rain hurt us a little once again. We were trying some new things with the car this weekend, and we made a big change after practice and it would have been nice to get a couple qualifying laps in to see how the car was going to react to it. But we got a couple early cautions and were able to make adjustments early in the race. It just got us behind a little bit to start off.”
Starting from the 15th position due to owner’s points proved to be an advantage for Petty as it helped him avoid a lap 1 incident which occurred after him. On the restart Petty was able to make his way towards the front rather quickly, although it proved to be a rather short green flag run again. The yellow flag flew again on lap 9 after a 3 car incident which Petty was able to avoid. Petty again took advantage of yellow flag conditions to make more adjustments to the #23 Hixson Construction Dodge. “The two early cautions definitely helped us out. The car was ill handling at the start of the race and we were able to make a couple big adjustments and got the car a lot better before we had two long green flag runs.”
Running in and around the top 25 for the majority of the race, Petty came in for the last time for four tires and fuel on lap 54. For the second time in two visits, Petty ended up in the top twenty, finishing 20th this time and 17th earlier this season. Happy but not completely satisfied with the finish, Petty explained, “ It’s always good for us when we can come home with a top 20 finish at a speedway, we had ourselves set up with some good pit strategy towards the end of the race. People were pitting for fuel and we were gaining a lot of positions. We were good to go on gas till the end and we weren’t going to have to make a stop like everyone else. But we got burned on a late caution that allowed the rest of them to come in and fill up with out losing track position. That probably cost us a top 15, but that’s racing. Sometimes pit strategy works for you, and sometimes is doesn’t.”
Petty and the team will head back to the shop and enjoy two weekends off after 4 weekends of racing in a row and get ready to run at the first dirt track of the year in Springfield, Illinois on August 23, 2009.
