- Jesse Love won for the seventh time in 12 starts to extend his lead in the ARCA Menards Series championship standings over eleventh-place finisher Frankie Muniz to 98 points with eight races remaining in the 2023 season. Love’s win is also his first career in ARCA Menards Series East competition.
- Love can clinch the 2023 ARCA Menards Series championship after the race at Salem if he has a 99-point lead. The maximum amount of points to be earned in the final race is 49 for winning the race, winning the pole, and leading the most laps, plus the 50-point bonus for entering and competing each race in the final five-race segment of the season. Love’s main challengers, Frankie Muniz and Andres Perez, are both winless at this point of the season and would lose any tie breakers based on wins.
- Luke Fenhaus closed on William Sawalich in the battle for the ARCA Menards Series East with his runner-up finish at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Fenhaus was leading when the final caution of the day was displayed with 16 laps remaining, but Love got the jump on the restart to claim the win. Fenhaus’s runner-up finish and bonus point for leading laps, combined with Sawalich’s fourth-place finish, has closed the gap in the AMSE standings to just eight points with two races remaining at The Milwaukee Mile and Bristol Motor Speedway.
- Sawalich pressured Love for the lead for much of the first 50 laps of the race, and even snuck past to take the lead off turn two on lap 59 but he slowed after making contact with Zachary Tinkle coming off turn four, allowing Love to sneak by and officially retain the lead. That was as close as he would come as he did not officially lead a lap throughout the night.
- Third-place finisher Sean Hingorani did lead some laps, passing Love shortly after the restart following the halfway break. Love would retake the lead 20 laps later and would lead until lap 165 when Fenhaus took over.
- Lavar Scott recovered from a near spin and contact with the turn one wall to finish fifth, his fifth top-five finish of the ARCA Menards Series East season and his third finish among the top five in three starts with the ARCA Menards Series.
- Daytona winner Greg Van Alst made his first start since Charlotte in May, finishing seventh. Van Alst made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut later in the night driving for Young’s Motorsports. He will make a several more appearances with the ARCA Menards Series this season and will run the remainder if the NCTS races.
- Andres Perez finished eighth and closed in on Frankie Muniz in the battle for the second position in the ARCA Menards Series standings. Perez is just one point out of second headed to Watkins Glen International on Friday.
- Christian Rose finished tenth, his eighth top-ten finish in 12 starts in 2023.
- Isaac Johnson finished 12th in his ARCA Menards Series debut driving for Caleb Costner. Johnson participated in the Reese’s Celebrity Pro-Am Go-Kart Challenge last year at Speedway Indoor Karting, where he is an employee, and had SIK on the side of his racecar this year.
ARCA PR
