Venturini Motorsports (VMS) closed out another successful weekend, picking up their fifth consecutive win in the 2023 season and 88th ARCA victory in team history. 18 year old Jesse Love drove the No. 20 GEARWRENCH Toyota Camry into Victory Lane following another dominant performance, placing himself in the lead of the drivers championship standings and picking up his fourth career ARCA victory.
Love set the tone early for the weekend by securing the fastest time in Friday’s test as well as in the only practice session of the weekend on Saturday. Subsequently, Love went on to claim the pole position award with a time three tenths removed from his next closest competitor.
Following his victory, Love explained his attitude going into the race, “I did a lot of prep work and talked to a lot of people that have won where I’m trying to win. I felt like I was pretty much ready to rip off the truck. I kind of worked up to it in practice, but at the same time I thought we were really good all weekend. And obviously my car was a bottle rocket.”
Despite being Love’s first time taking on a 1.5 mile track, Love won the race after leading 96 laps. Right behind him to finish in second was his VMS teammate, Dean Thompson, in the No. 25 Thompson Pipe Group Toyota Camry. This marks the second one-two finish for VMS this season following Love’s victory at Talladega Superspeedway with his teammate Gus Dean bringing home a second place finish.
Kansas saw Thompson not only secure his highest career finish in the ARCA Menards Series, but also lead a lap for the first time in his ARCA career on his VMS debut.
t was a promising weekend for Amber Balcaen in the No.15 ICON Toyota Camry. On only her third outing with the team she was able to put her car in fourth position during the Saturday qualifying session, just behind her teammate Dean Thompson.
Rounding out a monumental weekend for the team, Toni Briedinger became the first woman to run in both the ARCA Menards Series and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in a single day. Briedinger was supported by Victoria’s Secret for both the ARCA race as well as her Truck Series debut.
Venturini Motorsports will be chasing their sixth consecutive victory this weekend at the ARCA Menards Series East Race at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. The race will kick off at 9:30pm ET and will air live on FloRacing on May 13th. CNBC will offer delayed viewing on May 21st at 12:30pm ET.
