Fort Kent’s Austin Theriault made it two wins in a row and series-leading fifth this season on Monday when he captured the ARCA General Tire Grabber 100 at the DuQuoin State Fair’s Magic Mile in Illinois.
Theriault had won the Road America 100 eight days ago at the Road America road course in Plymouth, Wisconsin.
Monday’s race took two overtime restarts to settle it due to spinouts that brought out caution flags.
Theriault, who drives for Ken Schrader Racing, had moved his Toyota past Sheldon Creed into second after the first restart and was on the outside of leader Shane Lee for the second restart. Creed lined up behind Lee and bumped him on the restart. They got tangled up and Theriault sped away on the outside of lap 107.
“They were pushing each other around. They didn’t get a good restart and I did. I got a good launch so I was able to take the position,” said Theriault who took the checkered flag 1.3 seconds ahead of Creed. Lee wound up fifth.
“But I didn’t do this alone. If it wasn’t for our team and the behind-the-scenes stuff, I wouldn’t have been in that position,” he added.
“We’ve been able to pull through late in a lot of these races. We’ve been able to close real well,” Theriault said. “We were a little more dominant in a couple of our other wins, we were patient on the road course last weekend and we were good on Monday and it just so happened to work out for us.”
Theriault now has four consecutive top-three finishes and nine in 16 races. He also has eight top-two and 13 top-five finishes.
The 23-year-old Theriault extended his healthy lead atop the ARCA Series points over Dalton Sargeant with only four races remaining.
The next race will be the Eddie Gilstrap Motors Fall Classic 200 by Meadow View/Salem Crossing at Salem Speedway’s .555-mile oval in Indiana on Saturday night.
He is looking forward to the final stretch.
“As a team, we have stayed relevant every weekend and that has made a big difference for my confidence. We’ve been able to improve every week. We will continue to have challenges. We have more work to do for the last couple of races at intermediate tracks,” said Theriault referring to tracks that span from one to two and a half-miles long.