Will Kimmel, Boston strong in Pocono ARCA Test

LONG POND, Pa. – The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards hasn’t seen Will Kimmel in a race car since Talladega in May.

Wednesday he was back behind the wheel, testing his No. 69 car at Pocono Raceway for Saturday’s Pocono ARCA 200.

Kimmel dominated the leaderboard for a majority of the afternoon session, before drivers starting to make qualifying runs towards the end.

“The biggest thing is we run the older style 452 Fords and we own all our own motors,” Kimmel said. “ARCA’s been good enough to open the rules up for us and they’ve try to equal us up with the FR9’s and R07’s . “I think it’s really paid off today and we worked on the front end of the Ingersoll Rand-Messina Ford.”

Kimmel will make his eighth ARCA start at the Tricky Triangle on Saturday and look for his first career win.

“I think all that, and a combination with adding and me, I think that it’s all come together for us today, and really really happy with it.”

In the morning session, Justin Boston was on top for Venturini Motorsports. Boston picked up his first career win at Toledo in May and talked about looking forward to Saturday’s race at Pocono.

“Getting to race this brand new ZLOOP Camry. It’s really good. We had a couple things we had to work through today, but it’s really fast overall.”

Unusual things seem to happen at Pocono, as the second-year driver ran into some lead off the Tunnel Turn.

Venturini Motorsports brought the same car Erik Jones ran last year at Pocono for Boston.

The No. 25 car led the most laps last week at New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP) until he had to pit late in the race for a cut tire.

“We had a really good car,” Boston said. “We actually ran over something over the track and my tire was going down for abot four laps. Actually, he (Andrew Ranger) took the lead my tire started going down on me and I was trying to nurse it home. I was trying to see if it would hold off, but unfortunately it gave out on us and we had to pit under green and finish seventh.”

One of Boston’s mentors, Brennan Poole, also helped out the Venturini drivers, giving advice to him and rookie Cody Coughlin.

Turner Scott Motorsports will field an entry for Sprint Cup Series rookie Kyle Larson on Saturday, but Camping World Truck Series rookie Ben Kennedy shook down the No. 4 car in the test. Kennedy never turned a lap at Pocono until Wednesday.

Rookies Justin Allison and Austin Wayne Self topped the afternoon session.

Kyle Magda