- Jesse Love scored his ninth win of the 2023 ARCA Menards Series season in the Southern Illinois 100 at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds. It is his 11th career series win in 44 starts, meaning he has won one in every four starts he has made in the ARCA Menards Series.
- Love’s lead in the ARCA Menards Series championship standings has grown to 128 points over current runner-up Andres Perez with just four races remaining.
- If Love can win three of the final four races of the season he can tie Tim Steele’s modern era record of 12 wins in a season, set in 1997. Steele also won 11 in 1996. Ty Gibbs won ten times in his 2021 championship season. Both Love and Gibbs earned their ninth win of the season in their 16th start.
- Just like Love did in 2022, Brent Crews came up one position short of earning the Performance Seed Dirt Double bonus at DuQuoin. The bonus is awarded to any driver who can win both ARCA Menards Series races on dirt in a single season. By finishing second, Crews did lock in the $7,5000 Performance Seed Dirt Double bonus for the driver with the best average finish in the two dirt races with a 1.5 average. Love finished third at Springfield, giving him a 2.0 average finish in the two dirt races, good for a $5,000 bonus. Andres Perez finished second at Springfield and fourth at DuQuoin, and his 3.0 average finish was good for $2,500.
- Will Kimmel made his first start of the season and finished a strong third with a Legacy engine in the No. 69 Kimmel Racing Ford. Kimmel led the 30-minute practice session, qualified second, and ran with the lead group throughout the race.
- William Sawalich earned his fourth General Tire Pole Award of the season and led the first 20 laps of the race. Sawalich finished fifth, his ninth top-five finish in 10 starts in 2023.
- Dirt specialist Kelly Kovski finished sixth, his 23rd career top-ten finish.
- Christian Rose matched his career-best ARCA Menards Series finish in seventh.
- Tim Monroe finished eighth, one position short of matching his career-best finish set last year at DuQuoin when he finished seventh.
- Alex Clubb arrived at the track just before the start of the race due to attending his mother-in-law’s funeral. He finished ninth, his first top-ten finish since he finished eighth at Toledo Speedway in May 2021.
- Brayton Laster followed his first career top-ten finish at Springfield with another tenth-place finish at DuQuoin. His Rise Motorsports team arrived late due to a last-minute engine change which forced them to leave North Carolina at 5 A.M. to make the 11-hour drive to Illinois. Laster missed practice and turned the 13th-fastest lap in qualifying for his first lap on the track.
- Brad Smith finished eleventh, his best finish of the season.
- The next race for the ARCA Menards Series is the Sioux Chief Fast Track 150 at Kansas Speedway, set for 6 pm ET/5 pm CT on Friday, September 8. The race will be televised live on FS1 and broadcast on select affiliates of the MRN Radio network nationwide.
ARCA PR
