2018 AERS Race 5 - Darlington (Armor All 200)

Top: Crompton, Dwyer, Jefferson
Flop: Hyerski, Deefer, my commentary at parts lol

Quirky Darlington Armor All 200 Sees Ryan Barley Score Career Best Finish

It was quite an odd race at Darlington tonight, as Carson Crompton was the beneficiary of a mid-stop caution to shred the field into separate groups on and off the lead lap. Someone else who benefited from this was Simmons Racing rookie Ryan Barley, who, had avoided a near disaster after avoiding Alex Jates' #1 car coming out of the pits.

Barley would stay out until that 2nd and final yellow flew and would end up in the short list of drivers who were still in the lead pack. Barley, who hardly ever makes headlines and sort of keeps to himself, was pretty pleased to finish in that lead group, and take home is first ever top-5 and best career finish, in the 4th position.

"Honestly, dude, I'm just relieved to bring the thing home in one piece. Everyone was scraping the wall and miraculously I don't think we touched it even once. To keep that car in good shape is huge for us because we're planning on taking it to Philly in a couple weeks too. That's a keeper for sure. But anyways, yeah, I'm glad to have the best career finish and all that but we've got work to do, we're hungry for more and we want to show everyone what Simmons Racing is capable of."

Meanwhile, Jared Kash really had a wild day, spinning around with Tyler Deefer in the second yellow of the race, sustaining some decent damage and potentially ruining his "meh" day. The opposite happened and Kash drove his way to a 6th place finish.

"It's nice to get back on track, here" said the Livonia winner, "We've been pretty inconsistent so far so we'd like to get some sort of rhythm going here, it's crucial at this point of the schedule to get stuff figured out. But we're more than happy with 6th and to escape out of here, the guys are pretty excited."

As for his incident with Deefer, he said, "You know the tire wear was dreadful this weekend.I don't know what exactly was the timeframe but tires seemed to really go to s**t after a little bit of a run. People were just bouncing off the walls during that time period where the tires weren't good but nobody was going to risk getting off schedule on the pit strategy. Tyler kinda bounced off the wall I think and I ended up getting into him. I'm sure he thinks its no big deal because it just wasn't that bad. But I'm glad we were able to rebound."

Deefer finished 33rd and wasn't pleased with the tires.

"You know man, the tires were garbage today!" he said, after posting his worst finish of the season by far, "We weren't a 33rd place car today, the tires just absolutely ruined our day. And I'm sure I am not the only one with issues."

Caine Dwyer Fails Post-Race Inspection

While details weren't disclosed, Caine Dwyer's #10 Ally Chevy did not make it through post-race inspection. Dwyer's penalty has not been disclosed just yet, but it is expected that he will be docked 25 points. Dwyer started in the final 42nd position after qualifying 41st and serving a penalty for last race by starting in the rear of the field. He finished 12th and led 5 laps, he's led a lap in all 5 races thus far.

Dwyer's teammate Zach McRae, who finished 2nd, did not fail post-race inspection, but also was not available for comment on the situation. Dwyer also couldn't be reached.

Crompton wins at Darlington, takes effective point lead

Carson Crompton has been running brilliantly all season long.  When he's not caught up in a wreck he has rarely been seen far from the front of the field.  Of course, his boisterous and braggadocious attitude makes that well known without me writing this piece.

"We had a strong car all weekend.  Managed to keep it out of the wall and out of trouble unlike a lot of the field.  I'm surprised out how well we've been running at larger tracks and in qualifying, we always have focused more on race setups and perform better on short tracks in the past.  Great win for this team.  Now I'm gonna go celebrate"

Crompton was not notified of the impending penalties to points leader Caine Dwyer.  The 10 team currently leads the 84 by 13 points, with 25 to be docked from Dwyer's performance at Philadelphia.  But I'm sure Carson will spend the rest of the week celebrating his honorary position as points leader in theory only.


Nathan Smith chimed in but didn't speak long.  He had a quiet run after the opening stages of the race and finished 9th, and runs 10th in points thus far

"I'm glad we continue to run consistently.  As long as you can stay in the championship hunt you always have something to race for the next week.  Hopefully we can continue to run this well for the rest of the year.  Hats off to Carson he's having a hell of a year."

Aaron Anderson could not be reached for comments after the race.  He finished 25th and continues to run just inside the top 35 cutoff to avoid having to qualify his way into the show every race.