Taking advantage of a good racecar and some misfortune of others, Justin Boston drove the Venturini Motorsports No. 25 ZLOOP/JACO Environmental Toyota to his second victory of the 2014 ARCA Racing Series season in the Herr’s Live Life with Flavor 200 at Madison International Speedway. Boston took the lead at lap 181 when race-long leader Grant Enfinger suffered mechanical failure and stopped on the track to bring out the third and final caution flag of the day. On the ensuing restart, point leader Mason Mitchell got the jump from the outside groove and led into turn one but suffered electrical issues exiting turn two to again give Boston the lead which he held unchallenged until the end.
“It was hot in there,” Boston said in victory lane on what was indeed a warm and humid afternoon. “That long green flag run was tough. I followed the 98 car for a really long time just waiting for an opportunity to get by. I knew we had a better car but every time we had a run on him we’d catch some lapped traffic. Once we got by him I knew we’d open up a little room on him. We were going to need some luck to catch Grant and that’s what happened. You hate to see anyone have that happen, especially when he’s running as strong as he was, but we’ve had our share of rotten luck several times this year. Racing always has a way of evening things out over time and that’s what happened for us today.”
Despite winning the race off pit road on the final pit stop of the afternoon, Boston had his hands full with ARCA points leader Mason Mitchell on the final restart. Mitchell got a slight jump at the drop of the green and dove in front of Boston into turn one but immediately slowed, handing the lead right back to Boston on the exit of turn two.
“We had a great pit stop on the last caution but I knew Mason would be tough on that restart and he was,” Boston said. “We had already passed him once and I knew we could pass him again, but something happened to him on that restart. He just stopped in front of me. He did a great job getting out of the way otherwise we’d have had a huge wreck.”
“Our car was really strong all weekend long,” Boston continued. “We raced it pretty much how it came off the trailer. We didn’t really make many changes to it at all. Billy (Venturini) and the guys made the right calls all weekend long, with the setup and on pit road. They gave me a great pit stop under that last caution when the pressure was really on. I want to say thank you to all of them, we’ve had a really busy week and several sleepless nights and here they are working their hearts out on one of the hottest days of the year and that hard work really paid off.”
Boston’s victory comes at the conclusion of a three-races-in-seven days stretch that started last Sunday on the dirt at Springfield, then moved to the concrete high-banks at Bristol, and concluded in victory lane in Madison.
“It’s been a great week,” Boston said. “We had a great car at Springfield, although we didn’t get the finish we thought we should have. We learned a lot in our Truck Series debut at Bristol and we’re really excited to go back and run some more truck races later in the season. We’ve had such great cars in the ARCA Racing Series all season long I knew we’d have a chance to win another before the season ended. We have four more races yet to go, a dirt track, a short track, and two mile-and-halfs and I think we’ll have a chance to win all of them.”
The next race for Boston and the No. 25 ZLOOP/JACO Environmental Toyota Camry is the Southern Illinois 100 on the mile-dirt at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds in DuQuoin, Illinois on Monday, September 1. The green flag is scheduled for 2:30 P.M. Eastern; the race can be heard live on the ARCA Racing Network on ARCARacing.com.
Justin Boston PR
