KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Spencer Gallagher won the ARCA Racing Series finale Friday night at Kansas Speedway and Mason Mitchell took the season title by starting the race.
The 24-year-old Gallagher, from Las Vegas, raced to his first series victory, pulling away off a restart with three laps left. Josh Williams was second, and Ross Kenseth third.
Gallagher took the lead off a pit stop and led the final 53 laps.
“When we came to pit road, my team gave us a blazing stop,” Gallagher said. “We went from sixth to first, plus we made major changes. That ended up being dead-on point. We didn’t hit it a little. We took a big swing at it. And it worked.”
The 20-year-old Mitchell, from West Des Moines, Iowa, finished fifth. He won at Chicagoland and had 12 top-five finishes and 18 top-10s.
“It’s been an unbelievable year,” Mitchell said. “I can’t really put into words all of the hard work it took to get here. I had a lot of people here tonight. I just want everybody to enjoy the moment and not sleep until tomorrow.”
He became the third-youngest champion in the 62-year history of the series. Ty Dillon set the mark at 19 in 2011, and Chris Buescher also won at 19 in 2012.
“I was really just focused on the race and trying to win the race,” Mitchell said. “I thought about it a little bit, but I wanted to win for my team.”
Gallagher started 32nd after qualifying was rained out and the field set by points.
“It’s been a long road for us,” Gallagher said. “We had a very fast car in practice, but I knew it was going to be tough to come from 32nd place to the front.”
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