Riding Shotgun with Justin Boston: Week 4
May 14th, 2014 by Jaime Baker
Following another letdown at Mobile in the ARCA Racing Series, driver Justin Boston looked to turn his season around headed into Race Four of the season at the Talladega Superspeedway.
Coming into Talladega, Boston found himself starting off the 2014 season on a bad note with the only good highlights being two poles in the last two races. In his young career, the iRacer had yet to finish a restrictor plate race at Talladega or Daytona.
When the race weekend started on Friday with two rounds of practice, Boston and his Venturini Motorsports team found they had the speed to bring on their first win of the 2014 season. All of the ARCA Racing Series teams were very optimistic for qualifying at Talladega as this marked the first time that the ARCA Racing Series would use group style qualifying similar to the format which has been adopted by NASCAR. Boston ended-up finding a draft and put his No. 25 ZLOOP Computer and Electronic Recycling Centers/JACO Environmental Toyota Camry in the third spot on the grid.
When the green flag flew Saturday afternoon, Boston quickly worked his way up to the second spot where he stayed for the beginning of the race. The crew made their first pitstop on Lap 35 and was able to beat the leader off pit road during the green flag pit stops, giving Boston the lead. Boston went on to lead 11 laps before falling to the second spot behind teammate John Wes Townley. Following the first caution of the day, Boston found himself re-starting on the top line in the second position. When the green flew, Boston was unable to get the help he needed to retake the lead as the outside line stalled out. Boston fell all the way to the 15th after getting shuffled out of the draft and not getting the help he needed to stay in the top 10. Late in the race, Boston was able to work his way back up to the 12th spot where he would take the checkered flag.
“Although we had a shot to win and eventually fell short, we had a solid day.”
“This weekend at Talladega Superspeedway was great for us,” Boston said following the race. “Although we had a shot to win and eventually fell short, we had a solid day and started building some momentum into the thick of the ARCA Racing Series season. Our No. 25 ZLOOP Computer and Electronic Recycling Centers/JACO Environmental Toyota Camry was so fast. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t get hooked up with our teammate at the end and make a solid run once we got shuffled out of the bottom. Just finally finishing at an ARCA Racing Series plate race has me pumped, and ready to focus on our upcoming race at Toledo Speedway.”
Boston and his Venturini Motorsports team will be back in action May 18th at Toledo. The race will be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1.