Zane Smith Earns Top-10 Finish at Nashville
Concord, North Carolina (April 10, 2017) – In his first season ARCA start, California’s Zane Smith finished 10th in Saturday’s ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards – Music City 200 under the lights at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville.
Smith, driving Venturini Motorsports’ No.55 LaPaz-Icon Vehicle Dynamics Toyota Camry, was solid throughout the day providing an impressive glimpse of the future.
After qualifying seventh, Smith led 12-laps and maintained a stranglehold on the top ten positions the entire night at Nashville’s historic half-mile track.
Coming on strong late, Smith occupying the fourth position was in the hunt before contact on a restart caused the left front wheel on his Toyota to go flat inside the final twelve laps of the race. The unscheduled pit stop dropped the 17-year old driver nine positions before restarting 13th with less than ten laps remaining. Pulling up on the wheel Smith salvaged an already good night making up three spots for his second top-ten finish in only three career starts.
“I can’t be too disappointed, this 55 team brought a pretty stout Toyota to the track this weekend,” said Smith. “We led some laps and battled for position all night long. It was a fun race.”
“The outside lane was working for us there at the end. We were running inside the top-five when we had a lot of contact on one of those final restarts giving us a front left flat. The guys in the pit did a great job getting us back out and we were able to get that tenth-place finish. I’m really looking forward to getting back out there – we’ll be ready again for Salem.”
Seeking Rookie of the Year honors, Smith will pilot VMS’s No.55 Toyota in all but one of the remaining ARCA Series events. Smith will return to Salem Speedway on April 30th for the series next scheduled race.
ABOUT VENTURINI MOTORSPORTS:
Venturini Motorsports (VMS), fielding cars for over 30-years in the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards, is one of the premier NASCAR driver development programs in the country. Multiple team championships and consistent on-track success, VMS has evolved into one of the most recognizable names in motorsports. Since 2007, VMS has assisted in the career development of notable NASCAR drivers such as Joey Logano, Erik Jones, William Byron, Justin Allgaier, Alex Bowman, Brian Scott, Ryan Blaney, Brennan Poole, Daniel Suarez, and Brandon Jones. Over the years the Venturini name has become synonymous with modern-day racing in America. In 2012, the Venturini family was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame (www.NIASHF.org) and now find themselves enshrined with such sports icons as Joe DiMaggio, Mario Andretti, Vince Lombardi, Tommy Lasorda and Rocky Marciano.
Official: www.VenturiniMotorsports.com | Twitter: @VenturiniMotor | Facebook: Venturini Motorsports
Sources: Venturini Motorsports PR