FLAT ROCK — In a finish that was not unexpected, 15-year-old Max Reaves continued his hot streak in the ARCA East Series on Saturday night, winning his third straight race in Joe Gibbs Racing equipment to begin his young career in the series. He is just the second driver in East Series history to win his first three races entered.
Reaves — a protege of NASCAR champion Bobby Labonte, who was at the track Saturday and signed autographs for a long line of fans — won the pole for Saturday’s Dutch Boy 150 and held off the hard-charging 17-year-old Tyler Reif, who kept him honest for the entire 150-lap distance. Reif managed to lead 6 laps on Saturday, but Reaves dominated with 144 laps led.
The win follows two earlier wins for Reaves at Five Flags Speedway and Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. He’ll aim to be come the first driver to win four straight races to start his East Series career when the series returns July 18 at Dover. That race will be televised live on FS1.
Others who fought hard all night and came home with solid finishes include Takuma Koga, who came all the way from Japan to race and took him an ARCA career-best 3rd-place finish. The driver was ecstatic after the race, proclaiming his love for short tracks and saying, “I love Detroit!” Koga battled for much of the race with East Series points leader Isaac Kitzmiller, who ended up 7th after a flat tire derailed his race.
Matt Kemp also had a strong night, qualifying 2nd and finished 4th, his first ARCA East top-5 finish. Austin Vaughn scored his first career ARCA Menards Series East top-5 finish in fifth.
Local driver Brad Smith, from nearly Shelby Township, drove his No. 48 car to a career-best eighth-place finish. A longtime underdog in the sport, Smith has two career top-10 finishes in 446 career ARCA Menards Series starts since 1988, with a previous best finish of 9th at Winchester Speedway in 2020.
Isaac Kitzmiller leads the ARCA Menards Series East standings by six points over Tyler Reif headed into the fifth race of the season, the General Tire 150 at Dover Motor Speedway on July 18. Max Reaves is third, despite missing the race at Rockingham, and Zachary Tinkle and Takuma Koga round out the top five.
Street Stock and Factory Stock races
In other action at Flat Rock Saturday night, an excited Landon Schuster took home the victory in Street Stocks in a tight 25-lap battle.
And some of the best action of the night came in the nightcap, a 100-lap affair involving the Factory Stock 500 series. Around 24 cars started the race, but only half made it to the end.
Derrick Sheppard (#2), Kyle Metdepeningen (#1) and Ayden Bunting (#34); spent much of the race battling with each other for the top positions, and Sheppard deftly came back from 3rd on the final restart with 8 laps to go, passing the #1 and #34 to take the checkered flag.
Another strong runner early was the #4 of Rayce Metdepeningen, who had to retire half-way through the event with mechanical issues.
---
Follow AutoTechReviews on Instagram at @autotechreviews, and on Twitter @AutoTechReview. Follow Matt Myftiu on Twitter @MattMyftiu.
