ARCA Midget: Early camshaft issues at Grundy County gives Chakat Silverpaw the 4th last-place finish of hir career

Chakat Silverpaw picked up the 1st last place finish of hir SCRL ARCA Midget Series career in Friday's Season 1 Grundy 100 at the Grundy County Speedway when hir #1 fell out with camshaft problems after completing 6 of the 20 laps.

The finish came in hir 9th career series start. In the SCRL ARCA Midget Series, it's the 1st for car #1 and the 1st for camshaft issues. Across all the series in the SCRL, it's the 14th for the #1 and the 33rd for camshaft issues. 

Entering the first ever season for the SCRL ARCA Midgets Series, Silverpaw is the second most winningest chakats in SCRL history, having scored 4 career wins across various series, but was still trying to make a name for hir, after being out of the car for several years. Silverpaw finished 5th in hir first start at Toledo, 7th at Salem, 11th at Flat Rock and a 14th at Devil's Bowl before in hir 5th career start, Silverpaw led flag-to-flag to score hir 5th career SCRL win. A 6th at Indianapolis Speedrome, 15th at Santa Fe and a 10th in the last round at Columbus would place Silverpaw inside the top ten in points with a shot at hir first championship still alive.

In qualifying, Chakat Lightingblaze scored hir second straight series pole with a time of 17.157 seconds with Silverpaw posting a time of 17.375 seconds, 0.218 behind Lightingblaze's pole run, placing Silverpaw 7th on the grid. Starting last was the #19 of Servan Sarihan, 0.395 seconds off Lightingblaze's pole sitting time.

Jeremy Hawkins stalls at the start.

Just seconds after the field began their lone pace lap, Salem last-place finisher the #23 Jeremy Hawkins would stall on the frontstretch, preventing the inside line from going, before Hawkins was towed to pit road. With the race start delayed one lap, it allowed for Hawkins team to put on four fresh tires and sent their driver back out onto the track, staying on the lead lap and able to make the start. When the green came out it didn't take long for Hawkins to knock the #3 of Chakat Lightingblaze into the last spot, a position that Lightingblaze would hold through two cautions, when on Lap 6 Silverpaw's car started to smoke, as shi pulled behind the wall and into the small pit road, hir car was officially retired on Lap 6, but it wasn't until Lap 11 that Silverpaw was finally knocked back to the final spot.

Finishing 19th was Servan Sarihan, who had crashed outside of the track on the frontstretch and had somehow made his way outside the track and was stuck in the wall, unable to escape, but was still classified as "running" at the finish.

The remaining Bottom Five would be filled up before Lap 10 as a crash on the frontstretch would bring out the second caution of the day, with leader Kil-Kare last-place finisher the #8 of Juniper Skunktaur unable to slow down and ran into the back of the #15 of Sebastian Dent, that would be followed by the #5 of Michael Collins and 2 time last-place finisher the #16 of Daniel Hunter.

SCRLASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first time the #1 has finished last in a SCRL ARCA Midget race as well at Grundy County.
*This marked the first time a driver has trailed the field due to camshaft issues.
*This is the fourth last-place finish of Silverpaw's career, with the other three all coming in Season 1 of the SCRL Sun Energy Whelen Euro Elite 2 division and hir most recent being Round 4 at Hungaroring when hir #73 Knauf Ford did not start the race.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
20) #1-Chakat Silverpaw / 6 laps / camshaft
19) #19-Servan Sarihan / 8 laps / running
18) #8-Juniper Skunktaur / 8 laps / crash led 7 laps
17) #5-Michael Collins / 9 laps / crash
16) #16-Daniel Hunter / 10 laps / crash