ARCA to race at Mansfield in June
2/20/2009The ARCA RE/MAX Series will help bring Mansfield Motorsports Park back to life this season with the announcement that ARCA will stage a race there on June 20. Mansfield is about 80 miles southeast of Toledo.
The race track opened in 2002, and hosted wildly popular NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races, as well as ASA, USAR Pro Cup, ARCA Lincoln Welders Truck Series and numerous other racing events. After staging eight racing weekends last season, track officials announced in December that economic conditions had forced them to close the facility.
The move cost Ohio its only NASCAR national series event, with the trucks race moving to a track in Iowa. However, promotional help from the Mattioli family, owners of Pennsylvania s Pocono Raceway, will allow Mansfield Motorsports Park to bring the ARCA event to central Ohio.
ARCA president Ron Drager said the series was able to change its schedule to give Mansfield the race date, and that he was pleased that the Mattioli family helped put the package together. Their Pocono track has hosted 47 ARCA RE/MAX Series events since the first in 1969.
We ve worked with the Mattioli family for decades, and this request falls under our guidelines for realigning an event date, Drager said. Mansfield is a quality facility and we know how Ohio race fans have supported events like the ARCA RE/MAX Series at Toledo Speedway and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Mansfield in the past.
The ARCA series opened its 57th season of competition two weeks ago at Daytona International Speedway, and races next on April 5th at Salem Speedway in Indiana. The series comes to Toledo Speedway this year for races in May and September.