With his 14th top-10 finish in the books, Gus Dean (@gusdean) heads to Chicagoland Speedway for Thursday night’s SCOTT 150 not only looking to tally another strong performance in his No. 32 GREE Cooling Products Toyota but sneak in his first ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards win of the season.
After finishing third on the DuQuoin (Ill.) State Fairgrounds on Labor Day, Dean returned to Salem (Ind.) Speedway this past weekend hoping to contend for his second ARCA win in a throwback Kevin Cywinski (team owner) paint scheme. While competitive, Dean came up short for the win but secured his seventh top-five finish of the year.
Feeling fresh with two top-five performances in a row, the Bluffton, S.C. native is ready to tackle his 11th new track of 2017.
“I’m ready to go,” said Dean who locks third in the ARCA championship standings with three races remaining. “I’ve never been to Chicagoland, but I do have some experience on the mile-and-a-half’s and I’m hoping that experience will give some benefits into the early laps of practice.
“I know my Win-Tron Racing team is excited about the No. 32 GREE Toyota they are bringing and we have a lot of guests planning to come to Thursday night’s race, so I’m feeling pretty good about the race this week.”
With the final three races composed of mile-and-a-half tracks of Chicagoland, Kentucky and Kansas, Dean says a good finish this week is important to set the tone with his first full season of ARCA winding down.
“Even though I’ve never been to Chicagoland, I have been to Kentucky and Kansas, so I’m looking forward to this final stretch,” added Dean. “We’ve had a lot of speed on the short tracks and the team has really taken a lot of time in-between races to really finesse our GREE cars.
“I know we’ll have a brand-new car for Kansas and I’m looking forward to that, but before we get to Kansas, we gotta get through Chicagoland and Kentucky first with good finishes.”
Sitting just 10 points ahead of close friend Shane Lee in the championship point standings, Dean says his biggest title fight right now remains concentrated on the SCOTT Rookie of the Year chase, which Dean currently leads by 12 points over Riley Herbst.
“Of course, we want to finish as high as we can in points, but ultimately, we want to bring GREE back that Rookie of the Year championship,” said Dean. “We’re going to try real hard to put them in Victory Lane before the end of the season – but that sure would be a great consolation prize if we can’t.
“I’ve learned so much this year in ARCA, I can’t even begin to explain it all. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned though is patience. If we don’t have our GREE Toyota where we need it to be in the early portion of the race, we’ve been able to adjust get it better and pounce when it counts most. That has led us to a lot of success this year and that’s our plan of attack for the rest of the year.”
In 24 career ARCA Racing Series starts, Dean captured his first career victory in his second ever start at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway after starting second in Apr. 2016. Overall, Dean has eight top-five and 17 top-10 finishes and has led 37 laps in ARCA competition.
The SCOTT 150 (100 laps / 150 miles) is the 18th of 20 races on the 2017 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards schedule. Practice begins Thurs., Sept. 14 with an hour and a half practice session planned from 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. General Tire pole qualifying is set for later in the day at 4:35 p.m. The race is set to take the green flag later shortly after 7:00 p.m. The event will be broadcasted live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1), while ARCARacing.com will stream live timing and scoring throughout the week’s activities. All times are local (CT).
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