Roush Fenway's Stenhouse Wins Kentucky ARCA Event

Sparta, KY (AHN) - Three races and three winning rookies.

Scott Speed won at Kansas and Joey Logano won last week at Rockingham so ARCA RE/MAX Series rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr. took his turn late Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway.

Stenhouse, Jr., in the No. 99 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing, edged Speed in three late-race restarts to earn his first win in just his sixth ARCA start.

"I don't know if it has really sunk in yet," said Stenhouse. "I think the win probably won't sink in until a little later on. We've come out here and have had good runs and to finally have a win is great. We're coming towards the end of a long stretch of races and so hopefully after winning here we can do well at Toledo and go off on a high point before taking a few weekends off. The Roush Fenway Ford Fusion and the Roush Yates engines are awesome. We could pull up next to someone and just keep going. I've actually been struggling really bad on the restarts until those last few. The thing that really helped was nailing those restarts." Speed led 55 of 112 laps and had built a 10-car-length lead with less than 10 laps to go before a series of late-race wrecks bunched the field up.

The former Formula One driver survived the first green-white-checkered restart, but Stenhouse got a run and blew by on the outside on the second. Speed couldn't get around Stenhouse on a third and final restart and settled for runner-up honors.

The race was extended 12 laps because of the ARCA-mandated rule that no race can finish under caution and Stenhouse came away leading the points standings by five over Frank Kimmel.

Ryan Fischer finished a career-best third in the Venturini Motorsports Chevrolet and Speed's teammate Ken Butler III finished fourth while John Wes Townley rounded out the top-5.