With weather closing in, a multi-car incident with three laps to go ended the 54th running of the General Tire 200 at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama on Friday.
However, as the caution flag waved, Gus Dean and Josh Williams were battling side-by-side for the lead. Though initially Williams believed that he had had the edge, ARCA eventually determined that Dean had been out front at the time of the yellow and he was declared the race winner.
The caution was the fourth of the 76-lap race and, though ARCA typically allows multiple attempts to finish the race under green, weather was in the area. With darkness creeping in, ARCA officials declared that the race would end under yellow due to the impending darkness.
Gus Dean had started in second position alongside pole-sitter Tom Hessert, with the two drivers spending most of the race up front. Even when the order got mixed up after a caution flew during the round of green flag pit stops, the pair quickly moved back out front after the restart.
The two final cautions of the race flew within the last 15 laps, both times for multi-car incidents on the backstretch. Gus Dean led the field back to green on the final restart and was able to hold off the late challenge by Williams to take his No. 98 Mason Mitchell Motorsports Chevrolet to victory lane.
Meanwhile, things didn’t go as well for points leader John Wes Townley, who fell multiple laps down early on when contact with Bobby Gerhart cut down his tire.
Unofficial top 10 results:
1. Gus Dean
2. Josh Williams
3. Chase Briscoe
4. Will Kimmel
5. Sean Corr
6. Tom Hessert
7. Dalton Sargeant
8. Matt Kurzejewski
9. Bret Holmes
10. Brady Boswell
