It’s back to short track racing for Cunningham Motorsports (CMS) as the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards heads to Nashville for the Music City 200 presented by Azure Foundation Saturday night. Shane Lee and Dalton Sargeant will be piloting the No. 22 and No. 77 Big Tine Ford Fusions for the first time after the announcement was made that Big Tine has expanded its partnership with Cunningham for the 2017 season.
“I’m really looking forward to getting back to Nashville, especially with Big Tine on the hood of this No. 22 Ford Fusion,” said Lee. “It’s is such a fun place to run with the amount of history this track has, the character of it…I love it. I didn’t run a lot of short tracks last season in ARCA so I’m really excited to be able to work with Paul (Andrews) and the guys and hopefully get a win here in Nashville.”
Lee’s first laps at the historic Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville came at last year’s Music City 200, in his first of only two short track races in 2016. He was able to get another look at the speedway and gain valuable experience in a test just a few weeks ago.
“We had a good test a few weeks ago with Shane and Dalton,” said veteran crew chief Paul Andrews. “We’re looking to build on those results. Both of our cars needed to be a little bit better, but we’ve come up with some good things at the shop and we’re really excited about going back. The first short track race of the season is always exciting…it’s almost as good as going to Daytona.”
CMS saw quite a bit of success on short tracks last season, taking wins at Winchester, Lucas Oil, Iowa and Toledo…and setting the track record at Nashville during qualifying last season with Chase Briscoe.
Sargeant raced on six short tracks in the 2016 ARCA season and was no stranger to success, either. Coming away with four top three finishes out of those six races, Sargeant’s first ARCA win came at one of the most challenging short tracks on the circuit, Berlin Raceway.
“Last year I was able to get comfortable around this style of race track in an ARCA car,” said Sargeant, “and even though I haven’t raced an ARCA car at Nashville before, I have raced late models here so hopefully I’ll be able to use some of that experience this weekend. The test last month was helpful with just being able to reacquaint myself with the track and figure out what we need to do to come back and have a shot at bringing this No. 77 Big Tine Ford Fusion into victory lane.”
The Music City 200 presented by Azure Foundation is live on MAVTV Saturday, April 8 at 9 p.m. ET. Keep up with Cunningham Motorsports on Facebook (@CunninghamRace), Twitter (@Cunningham_Race) and Instagram (@CunninghamRace) for information, photos and updates throughout the week. Also head to the website at cunninghamrace.com for more news.
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