Winners: Ty Gibbs; Austin Cindric; Martin Truex Jr.
Ty Gibbs Dominated ARCA Event
Friday night’s General Tire 150 at Phoenix was the one and only combination race featuring the ARCA Menards Series and the ARCA Menards Series West this season.
A caution with seven laps to go set up a last-lap race to the line between Ty Gibbs and Corey Heim, the latter of whom won the ARCA Menards Series season-opener at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 13. Heim challenged Gibbs on the restart, but the No. 18 pulled away to the point where the No. 20 had no way to challenge for the win in the final corner.
"Not a lot of kids get to do what I do," said Gibbs, the grandson of Pro Football and NASCAR Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs, in Victory Lane. "I’m very thankful for that, and I really love driving race cars."
Retweet to congratulate @TyGibbs_ on his first ARCA Menards win of the 2021 season! pic.twitter.com/bzgxPYCXNS
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) March 13, 2021
Cindric Grabs Second 2021 Win
Austin Cindric, driver of the #22 Car Shop Ford became the first driver to win multiple Xfinity races this season. He's won at Daytona and Phoenix this year.
“They never come easy," Cindric said. “This is a really important track this season and I am pumped for this team. Hopefully we put on a great show there. We were ruining each other there at the end.”
Ty Gibbs crossed the finish line second after starting twenty-seventh.
2nd WIN of 2021!! Hard work and fast racecars. Proud of these guys. Thanks for cheering for the 22@CarShopDotCom / @Team_Penske / @FordPerformance pic.twitter.com/UYJvAU4KDk
— Austin Cindric (@AustinCindric) March 14, 2021
Martin Truex Jr. First Phoenix Raceway Win
Martin Truex Jr., driver of the #19 Bass Pro Toyota overpowered Joey Logano on the final restart and pulled away for the victory, snapping a 29-race winless drought on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.
Regarding his win: Huge boost. Huge confidence. I’ll be honest with you, if we would have come here last year in the final four, I would have been not very confident. Last year we struggled here for some reason. It’s never been our greatest track, I’ll say that. It’s always been just okay. I’ve never come here with a really warm, fuzzy feeling that we’re going to go there and win, we’re going to go there and be really, really strong and lead laps.
That was definitely a nice surprise today. Really just hats off to all the guys for the hard work. Everybody that builds the cars, puts in all the effort back at JGR, Toyota.
We took a huge swing at the car for this race. We knew what we’ve been doing here in the past two races wasn’t good. Car didn’t do anything I needed it to do. We just went to work on it. James and the guys did an awesome job with that. Really happy about it.
What a day! Phoenix hasnt been our best track and we just kept working on it and got the win. Awesome job by @james_small and everyone on our @BassProShops team! #TeamToyota pic.twitter.com/NAy0HtKhle
— Martin Truex Jr. (@MartinTruex_Jr) March 15, 2021
