DUQUOIN, Ill. (AP) Tom Hessert won the ARCA Racing Series race at DuQuoin State Fairgrounds in an overtime shootout Sunday night for his first series victory since 2014.
The 30-year-old Hessert, driving Venturini Motorsports' No. 25 Toyota, survived the green-white-checker finish on the mile clay oval for his sixth career series victory.
''This is so awesome,'' said Hessert, from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. ''We've been so close on the dirt so many times to finally win one is just really, really cool. Very special.''
Kelly Kovski was seccond, followed by 61-year-old former NASCAR driver Ken Schrader, points leader Chase Briscoe and Ryan Unzicker. Schrader drove Venturini's No. 25 Toyota.
''We started third, run third, guess we're just a third-place guy tonight,'' Schrader said. ''We didn't overheat like a lot of them did. That's a good thing. But, wow, DuQuoin at night was wonderful.''
On the final restart, Hessert elected to start on the outside and got a jump on Schrader. Briscoe got underneath Schrader into Turn 1 and pounded the back of Hessert's rear bumper through the corner. Hessert maintained a length advantage coming to the checkered flag, with Briscoe, Kovski and Schrader trailing. ARCA officials dropped Briscoe from second to fourth for jumped the start.
''Crazy night,'' Hessert said. ''We overheated so bad over that first run. ... We were just nursing this thing. We had a really good race car. I knew if we could just cool it down, we could win it.''
