Event statistics following the sixth race of the 2018 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards season, the General Tire 150 on Thursday, May 24, at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.
Brandon Jones won his first ARCA race of the season to lead an all-Toyota top-five, besting Riley Herbst by .293 seconds. Jones’s teammates Sheldon Creed and Zane Smith were third and fifth respectively, with Todd Gilliland sandwiched in between in fourth.
General Tire 150
Charlotte Motor Speedway – Concord, North Carolina
- Winner (starting position): Brandon Jones (13th)
- Top Five: Brandon Jones, Riley Herbst, Sheldon Creed, Todd Gilliland, Zane Smith
- Full Results: Brandon Jones, Riley Herbst, Sheldon Creed, Todd Gilliland, Zane Smith, Quin Houff, Bret Holmes, Will Rodgers, Codie Rohrbaugh, Brandon Lynn, Travis Braden, Max Tullman, Austin Hill, Gus Dean, Natalie Decker, Andy Seuss, Brandon Grosso, Joseph Graf Jr., Tom Berte, Leilani Munter, Michael Self, David Sear, Zach Ralston, Chase Purdy, Tyler Dippel, Jesse Iwuji, Bryan Dauzat, Don Thompson, Con Nicolopoulos, Brad Smith
- Laps Completed: 100
- Laps Led: Todd Gilliland (60), Brandon Jones (32), Sheldon Creed (8)
- Pole Position: Todd Gilliland (183.305 mph)
- Hard Charger: Riley Herbst (+16; 18th to 2nd)
- Margin of Victory: 0.293 seconds
- Car Count: 30
- Cars Entered: 31
- Cars Running at Finish: 22 (of 30; or 73 percent of the field)
- Drivers to Finish on Lead Lap: 16
- Cautions: 5 for 36 laps
- Average Speed: 108.630 mph
- Lead Changes: 4
- Manufacturer Breakdown: Chevrolet (12), Toyota (10), Ford (7), Dodge (1)
Notes of Interest – Race/Weekend Recap
- This is Brandon Jones’s first ARCA victory of the season and the fifth of his career. It is Jones’s first win at Charlotte Motor Speedway; he also has victories at Winchester Speedway, Lucas Oil Raceway and Michigan International Speedway.
- Jones – making his ARCA season debut at Charlotte – is the fourth driver to win an ARCA race this season. He joins three-race winner Zane Smith, as well as single-race victors Michael Self and Christian Eckes.
- Jones is the first driver to win an ARCA race at Charlotte since 2004, when Ryan Hemphill won the race during Memorial Day Weekend 14 years ago. Jones is the 14th driver in 20 ARCA races at Charlotte to win a race. Only Tim Steele (four), Frank Kimmel (three) and Kirk Shelmerdine (two) have multiple wins at Charlotte in ARCA competition.
- Jones has now won at least one ARCA race in three consecutive seasons and four of the last five years, dating back to 2014, when he won two of his three contests. He has won five races in 22 ARCA starts, winning 22.7 percent of his starts. He has also finished in the top 10 in 17 of 22 races.
- Jones won from the 13th starting position, the second time a driver has won a race this season after starting 13th. Michael Self won at Daytona International Speedway after starting 13th.
- Jones is the first driver to win from the 13th starting position at Charlotte. It is the second worst starting spot for a winner; Kirk Shelmerdine won in 2003 after starting 18th.
- Jones won by .293 seconds over Riley Herbst, ensuring that each of the first six races this season have had margins of victory of less than two seconds.
- Four of the first six races this season have been won by a driver with the last name of Smith or Jones.
- Riley Herbst finished a season-best second. It marked Herbst’s third top-10 in six races this season. Herbst made up the most positions of any driver from start to finish, 16 from his 18th-place starting spot.
- Sheldon Creed finished third, his fourth top-three finish and fifth top-five result of 2018. That ties him with Zane Smith for most top threes and top fives; both have also finished in the top 10 a season-best five times.
- Creed now owns an average finish of 5.5 this season, the best among the nine drivers that have competed in all six races so far in 2018.
- Polesitter Todd Gilliland was fourth in his ARCA season debut, after leading a race-high 60 laps. It marked Gilliland’s first ARCA race since 2015; he’s finished in the top five in two of his three career ARCA races, and in the top 10 in all three races.
- Gilliland became the fourth driver to start from the pole position this season, joining three-race polesitter Chandler Smith and single-race polesitters Natalie Decker and Michael Self.
- Zane Smith finished fifth, his fifth consecutive top-five finish of the season, though it ended his two-race winning streak as well as a four-race stretch of either a victory or second-place result. Smith has finished in the top 10 in 17 of his 22 career ARCA races.
- Smith failed to lead any laps for the first race this season, however, he still leads all drivers in laps completed with 866 of 879 laps contested.
- Quin Houff finished a career-best sixth in his first race since Daytona International Speedway (finished 32nd), earning his first career top 10. Houff was also the highest-finishing Chevrolet driver, after Toyota’s stranglehold on the top five.
- Bret Holmes recorded his second consecutive top 10 and third of the season with a seventh-place effort.
- Will Rodgers mustered a career-best eighth in the highest-finishing Ford of the race. It was only Rodgers’s second career ARCA race; he was 30th in his debut at Daytona.
- Codie Rohrbaugh finished a season-best ninth in his third race of the season.
- Brandon Lynn finished 10th, marking his second top 10 in as many races in 2018.
- In addition to Jones and Gilliland, five other drivers competed in an ARCA race for the first time in 2018: Austin Hill (13th); Tom Berte (19th); David Sear (22nd); Zach Ralston (23rd); and Don Thompson (28th). Berte was the oldest driver in the field at age 74.
- Andy Seuss was the final driver to finish all 100 laps; Seuss was 16th.
- A total of 30 cars competed, with 22 finishing the race.
- The race featured four leaders, six lead changes, and for the third time this season, only five cautions – all tying or setting season lows.
- For the second consecutive race, a total of 13 drivers improved on their starting position in the race.
- The next race will be Friday, June 1, with the General Tire #AnywhereIsPossible 200 at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
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