ARCA Menards Series Championship Leader Michael Self Ready for Music City Showcase
CONCORD, NC | MAY 1, 2019 — Taking over the ARCA Menards Series Championship lead after another strong outing last week at Talladega Superspeedway, Michael Self and his No. 25 Sinclair Oil Toyota team now prepare for Saturday night’s General Tire Music City 200 at the Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville.
After a disappointing finish in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway Self rebounded with back-to-back wins and a fifth-place finish last week to climb to the top of the series point standings. Entering this weekend’s short track race at Nashville, the series enters a favorable stretch for the 28-year old driver.
“I’m really excited about where this team is at right now,” said Self after Talladega.
“We’re headed back to another short track where we’ve been really strong this year – and after that we go back to Charlotte and Pocono which are places I like, and the type of tracks that fit my driving style the best. I just can’t say enough about this Venturini Motorsports Sinclair Oil team. My crew chief, Shannon Rursch, and the guys back at the shop continue to build great race cars and bring a positive attitude to the track every week.”
Self, who considers himself more of a speedway racer finished fourth last year in his first-ever appearance at Nashville. Showing success on the intermediate tracks over his ARCA career, Self has proven he can be just as effective on the short tracks. Over his first 23 races since 2014, Self has earned at total of five wins, 14 top-five’s and 14 top-10’s. Two of his wins and five of his top-five finishes have been on track’s less than one-mile in length.
“I’ve got a lot of experience on short tracks, and have been fortunate to win a handful of them between the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and now ARCA, but they definitely haven’t been the tracks I prefer going to since joining the ARCA Menards Series,” Self says. “I’ve always just enjoyed the speedways more, but with the way we ran at Pensacola and Five Flags Speedway, I’m excited to get to Nashville this weekend, and every track from here on out, really. It’s a lot of fun when a team has the chemistry that I feel this 25 team has, and it really makes every race weekend enjoyable, no matter what type of track we’re going to.”
The General Tire Music City 200 presented by Inspectra Thermal Solutions is scheduled for Saturday, May 4. The day will get started with practice at 2:15 pm ET/1:15 pm CT, General Tire Pole Qualifying will follow at 5:15 pm ET/4:15 pm CT, and the race will go green shortly after 9 pm ET/8 pm CT. The race will be televised live flag-to-flag on MAVTV.
ABOUT VENTURINI MOTORSPORTS
With 54 all-time victories, Venturini Motorsports, an official Toyota Racing Development team, has been a permanent fixture in the ARCA Menards Series since 1983 and is considered one of the early pioneers in NASCAR driver development programs.
Since Joey Logano, last year’s 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup champion, raced for the team in 2007, VMS has gone onto assist many of the sports’ top driver prospects in pursuit of making it to the highest levels of stock car racing.
The growing list of drivers racing today in one of NASCAR’s top-three touring series include current Toyota drivers Erik Jones, Christopher Bell, Harrison Burton, Christian Eckes, Chandler Smith, Brandon Jones, Todd Gilliland, Brennan Poole, Ryan Reed, and Natalie Decker. VMS Alumni also include Joey Logano, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, Bubba Wallace, Matt Tifft, Noah Gragson, Justin Allgaier, and Justin Haley.
Sources: Venturini Motorsports PR
Photo Credit: Barry Cantrell