William Sawalich became the 353rd different driver to win at least one ARCA Menards Series race with his victory in Saturday’s ARCA Berlin 200 at Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan. Sawalich took the lead from series championship leader Jesse Love coming to take the white flag and led the final two laps to score the victory.
Love dominated the race, leading 197 of the race’s first 198 laps after starting from the General Tire Pole. Love was slowed over the final ten laps by a small fire, likely rubber build-up, in his left front wheel well and caught a pack of lapped cars at the wrong moment on lap 198, allowing Sawalich to move in and use the bumper to move Love up the track to take the lead.
With his second-place finish, Love extends his lead in the ARCA Menards Series championship standings to 20 points over sixth-place finisher Frankie Muniz.
Two-time 2023 ARCA Menards Series West winner Sean Hingorani earned his first ARCA Menards Series top-five finish, crossing the finish line in third, the final driver on the lead lap.
Andres Perez finished fourth, his fifth top-ten finish of 2023. Perez is now third in the standings, 38 points behind Love and 18 points behind Muniz.
In her 38th career series start, Toni Breidinger earned her first career top-five finish in fifth. Breidinger will return to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series next weekend at Nashville Superspeedway driving for TRICON Garage.
Frankie Muniz matched his career-best finish with his third sixth-place finish of the 2023 season. Muniz continues to lead the Laps Completed category; he completed 198 of the race’s 200 laps, the first time in 2023 he has not finished on the lead lap.
Christian Rose achieved his career-best ARCA Menards Series finish in seventh. Rose raced as high as fourth in the first half of the race.
Tony Cosentino finished a career-best eighth after a long night that saw the team’s truck break down with transmission problems on the way to Michigan. A late-night truck change and another stop to make impromptu repairs to the team’s trailer pushed their arrival at the track to after 3 o’clock. Cosentino was able to make a couple of laps in practice before qualifying ninth.
Jon Garrett earned his first top-ten finish of the season in tenth.
The next race for the ARCA Menards Series is Saturday night, June 24 at the shortest track on the schedule, Elko Speedway. The Menards 250 is set to go green shortly after 9 pm ET and will be televised live on FS2.
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