The summer break for the ARCA Menards Series East tour ends as Rette Jones Racing and developmental driver Max Gutiérrez head to the Midwest to compete in Saturday night’s Shore Lunch 150 at Iowa Speedway.
Saturday’s combination race for the premier ARCA Menards Series and the East Series tour thrusts the divisions into a limelight where the competition will fierce but certainly presents an opportunity.Iowa marks the second appearance in the premier ARCA Menards Series for Gutiérrez who made his second series start in May at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Despite his inexperience on the bigger and much faster intermediate race track, Gutiérrez impressed.
Qualifying 13th, Gutiérrez raced into the top-10 before a flat tire late in the event relegated the team to a 15th place finish. Still, the team is upbeat that they can return to the tour and finish what they started at Charlotte.
“I’m looking forward to being back on the United States side and racing in ARCA competition at Iowa Speedway,” said Gutiérrez who scored a thrilling victory in the ARCA Menards Series East season opener at New Smyrna in February.
“Charlotte was a great opportunity for myself and our RJR team but unfortunately we did not earn the finish I felt like we were capable of. Iowa is a race where we can do that though and I’m optimistic as well that we can perhaps contend for more than a top-10 finish on Saturday night.”
Gutiérrez has flourished on short tracks this season. In five ARCA East races in 2021, all on short tracks, the Mexico City, Mexico native has scored five top-10 finishes, including the victory in February and maintains an average finish of 6.4 leading into the series’ sixth race of the season.
Nestled fourth in the championship standings, just seven points from second-place contender Mason Diaz – Gutiérrez, driver of the No. 30 TOUGHBUILT Ford Fusion realizes keeping his consistency alive at Iowa’s popular 0.875-mile race track is crucial.
“We certainly did not have the finish we were hoping for at Southern National and that put us a little behind in the point standings,” admitted Gutiérrez. “It is not from a lack of effort from our Rette Jones Racing team. We are going to rebound, and I hope it is in a big way on Saturday night and we can recover the points we lost last month.”
In addition to TOUGHBUILT. TekNekk and Jimmy Morales Escuderia TELMEX | TELCEL, BolsaDX.mx, Distributed Ledger Inc. (DLI), GoGig, Ford Performance, Goodridge Fluid Transfer Systems, Jones Group Demolition and Abatement and JRi Shocks join the Mooresville, N.C.-based team as partners this weekend.
“I like racing at Iowa Speedway, and I hope our prior experience as a team helps Max contend for our second victory of the season on Saturday night,” said team co-owner and crew chief Mark Rette.
“Everyone was disappointed the way that Southern National turned out, but it just put some fuel on our fire to go out there and dig deeper. Max has been enthusiastic about getting back to the U.S. and racing and we are too.
“We have a good baseline of where we want to be when we unload for practice on Saturday, so we start from there and just look to get better and see if we can’t help get Max back in Victory Lane.”
RJR is co-owned by Canadian entrepreneur and former race car driver Terry Jones.
The Shore Lunch 150 (150 laps | 132 miles) is the sixth of eight races on the 2021 ARCA Menards Series East schedule. Practice begins Sat., Jul. 24 with a forty-five-minute practice session from 4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. General Tire pole qualifying is set for a short time later at 6:00 p.m. The race is set to take the green flag shortly after 8:00 p.m. The event will be televised live on MAVTV and NBC Sports Gold Pass. ARCARacing.com will also stream live timing and scoring throughout the entire weekend festivities. All times are local (CT).
The Shore Lunch 150 (150 laps | 132 miles) is the 11th of 20 races on the 2021 ARCA Menards Series schedule. Practice begins Sat., Jul. 24 with a forty-five-minute practice session from 4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. General Tire pole qualifying is set for a short time later at 6:00 p.m. The race is set to take the green flag shortly after 8:00 p.m. The event will be televised live on MAVTV and NBC Sports Gold Pass. ARCARacing.com will also stream live timing and scoring throughout the entire weekend festivities. All times are local (CT).
RJR PR
