ARCA RE/MAX Series rookie Patrick Sheltra conquered his Iowa Speedway debut with a 20th place finish Saturday night in the Prairie Meadows 250.
Sheltra, nicknamed “Mr. Showtime” when competing on the dirt headed into Iowa Speedway looking to gain knowledge about the Newton, Iowa facility while also hoping to drum up his second top-10 finish of the season.
In the first practice session of the day, Sheltra aboard Dan Kinney’s Premier Motorsports Chevrolet Monte Carlo clicked off the 20th fastest lap with a time of 24.859 seconds at 126.715 MPH.
“Not a bad showing for practice, but we’re looking for more, ” said Sheltra. “This is my first trip to Iowa, I’m looking for a good showing. ”
Heading into ARCA SIM Factory pole qualifying, Sheltra has proven he is a solid qualifier, Iowa proved no different. Whipping his No. 60 FloraGanics-Brady Ranch Chevrolet Monte Carlo around the track, he posted a fast time of 24.358 seconds at 129.321 MPH lining the Florida native 15th on the grid.
“I’ll take that, ” Sheltra said following time trials. “We changed a few things before qualifying and it worked. Now we just need to keep up our pace heading into the race and hope we can bring home a good finish. ”
Sheltra’s night under the lights was quiet. Despite having a solid racecar beneath him, the team was no match for the highly funded ARCA team forcing Sheltra to battle in his “group” amidst the top-20.
The Premier Motorsports team would hover inside the top-20 all night with Sheltra crossing the line in the 20th position completing 239 of 250 laps.
“This was the longest race of the 2007 season and it felt like it, ” offered Sheltra. “We had a good car, not the best in the field, but we did what we could. I want to thank my guys for everything this weekend. Slowly but surely we’re making progress each week and the best results for this team are still yet to come. ”
With his respectable finish Saturday night, Sheltra remains locked ninth in the championship standings, 100 markers behind seventh place competitor Justin Marks and 30 points ahead of 10th place competitor Bryan Silas.
Next up for the ARS is the first of two trips to the breathtaking Pocono Raceway. The Pocono 200 is set for Saturday, June 9 with live coverage on the SPEED channel beginning at 1:00pm.
“I’m looking forward to Pocono, ” Sheltra noted. “We ran well there last year in a car fielded by Ken Schrader until we got into a late race accident. Hopefully things will be better the second time around and we can achieve our second top-10 finish of the season. ”
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