Rookie Connor Mosack wins first career ARCA race at Kansas Speedway
Connor Mosack is making up for lost time.
Mosack, who did not start racing competitively until age 18, won the ARCA Menards Series Sioux Chief Fast Track 150 on Friday night at Kansas Speedway for his first professional stock car victory.
Mosack, a 24-year-old rookie, took the lead from Dean Thompson on the 42nd lap (out of 100) and held off runner-up Carson Kvapil, son of former NASCAR trucks champion Travis Kvapil, for a comfortable margin of victory of 3.20 seconds in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18.
Toni Breidinger, the only other driver on the lead lap at the end, finished a career-best third.
Though racing on a part-time basis, Mosack was overdue for his first ARCA win. Mosack had posted six straight top-10s — including a fourth at Kansas in May — dating to last fall at Bristol. Even more impressive, in his two previous ARCA races this summer, Mosack was second at Pocono and third at Michigan.
“This feels really good; it’s like you’ve had a weight lift off your shoulders,” said Mosack, who led 64 of the 100 laps and lapped all but one car. “It’s been a long time coming. I’ve definitely made plenty of mistakes this year and had some bad luck as well.
“We’ve had the speed to win, and we should have won plenty of times. But until you really do, you can’t say you’re a winner in the series. It gives you (the) mindset the next time you (start) the next race — you’re a guy who has more confidence going into the next weekend.”
Pole sitter Jesse Love, who won the spring race at Kansas by leading 96 of the 100 laps, exited early after his Toyota broke down on the 24th lap. Love, the series points leader who was seeking his series-leading 10th win, blew a right front tire, causing a broken suspension and sending a tire rolling down the track.
“I wish we would have had the 20 (Love) and the 25 (Thompson) to race, but they had their issues,” said Mosack, who was to start in Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 Xfinity Series race. “I felt like that would have been a pretty good race to the finish. Jesse and I have been racing a lot this year, so it would have been really good to beat him heads up. Hopefully, we’ll get another opportunity to do that next year, but it feels good to have that speed the whole second half of the race and lap most of the field. “
The night also ended early for another popular driver, rookie Frankie Muniz. Muniz, best known for playing the title role in the hit television series “Malcom in the Middle” from 2000-06, struck some debris at the halfway mark of the race, causing damage to the right front of his Ford and igniting a fire under the hood.
Mandy Chick of DeSoto had a respectable finish of ninth in her fourth ARCA start of the season. Chick, who improved on her 12th place finish in the May race at Kansas, was dealing with some heat-related issues after the race.