CASA GRANDE, Ariz. — Justin Peck and the Rudeen Racing team are on fire in the desert.
Peck, 27, of Monrovia, IN, drove the Rudeen Racing No. 26 to his second American Sprint Car Series Feature win in his last three starts at Central Arizona Raceway Saturday night, leading all 25 laps of the main event to bank his fifth career Series victory on night three of the inaugural Sonoran Clash.
The win comes one race after suffering a DNF while leading on night two of the two-weekend event last Sunday, when a flat right-front tire dashed Peck’s chances for a repeat after going to victory lane the night before. Across all three races, Peck has now led a combined 52 of the 80 feature laps contested.
Peck has been the man to beat at the track, and showed exactly why Saturday night, jumping out to the early lead from the pole of the starting grid. For 25 laps, Peck held the top spot, relinquishing it only once on Lap 2 to Sam Hafertepe Jr. before the caution flag was thrown, negating Hafertepe’s pass.
After a second caution period with 8 laps complete, Peck took off with Hafertepe following not far behind until lapped traffic came into the picture on Lap 16. Peck made his moves without much hesitation while Hafertepe took more time getting around the slower cars, widening the gap between the two.
“I was really kinda nervous about it because I kinda figured everyone was rolling around the middle-bottom area, and it seemed like that was the only spot you could make grip,” Peck said. “For the most part, I was wrong because those first couple guys that I got to were higher on the racetrack and I was shocked to see that. I was able to get by a couple of them pretty quick.”
Good decisions in traffic gave Peck the advantage needed to open up a gap of over two seconds by the checkered flag while Hafertepe settled for a runner-up finish.
“Hats off to my guys — for me to stand here and say that I didn’t feel like we were perfect tonight and still be standing up here with a W is pretty awesome,” Peck said. “It’s just a testament to our race program. We’ve got Kevin and Monika Rudeen here today, car owners on this thing. They give us a first-class operation and it’s our job to go out here and win races, and I’m glad we could do that for them here tonight.”
J.J. Hickle held his spot on the podium throughout the event to finish third while Hank Davis climbed three spots to finish fourth and 15-year-old Levi Hillier completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 26-Justin Peck[1]; 2. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[4]; 3. 17W-JJ Hickle[2]; 4. 17GP-Hank Davis[7]; 5. 26R-Levi Hillier[3]; 6. 95-Matt Covington[5]; 7. 45X-Kyler Johnson[6]; 8. 29K-Levi Kuntz[10]; 9. 23-Seth Bergman[11]; 10. 2B-Garrett Benson[15]; 11. 15-Nick Parker[17]; 12. 88C-Brogan Carder[23]; 13. 34-Sterling Cling[12]; 14. 11J-Wyatt Miller[13]; 15. 88-Terry Easum[9]; 16. 16G-Austyn Gossel[24]; 17. 3-Cole Schroeder[25]; 18. 42-Caleb Saiz[21]; 19. 88R-Ryder Laplante[22]; 20. 13-Elijah Gile[14]; 21. 8-Jake Helsel[18]; 22. 23N-Skylar Gee[19]; 23. 2-Whit Gastineau[8]; 24. 31BW-Braxton Weger[16]; 25. 77X-Alex Hill[20]
