The finish came in his 9th start. In the SCRL Lucas Oil ARCA Racing Series, it's the 1st for car #4 and the 24th from a crash. Across all the series in the SCRL, it's the 12th for the #4 and the 253rd from a crash.
Entering Season 3 of the SCRL Lucas Oil ARCA Racing Series, Ward was a rookie who had never competed in a single SCRL race and would sign up to drive in the ARCA's division highest series driving for Turner Scott Motorsports. Ward's ARCA career started off with a disappointing 38th at Daytona in his league and series debut, a 8th at Nashville would be followed up with surprise trip to victory lane in just his 3rd career start. A 12th at Salem, 38th at Talladega, 29th at Charlotte before Ward would return to victory lane for the second time in his career in his 7th start at Gateway before finishing 28th in the last round at Pocono.
In qualifying, Arina McShane scored her first career series pole with a time of 28.516 seconds with Ward posting a time of 28.737 seconds, 0.221 behind McShane's pole run, placing Ward 30th on the grid while starting last was the #34 Bob Brent's Orchard Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-RAM Chevrolet of Trey Wright.
Just seconds after the field rolled off pit road, Charlotte last-place finisher the #77 Barbera's Autoland Dodge of Samet Ozkan, who was scheduled to start 26th, stalled on pit road and had to be pushed to his pit stall as the team looked over the car as the field took the green flag, the team discovered that the car had a flat tire and quickly put on four fresh tires and was able to send their driver back out but was told by their spotter to hold off as at that same time, the race's first caution came out.
As the field entered Turn 4, the #94 Harley Davidson of Pikeville / Pop's Chevrolet of Jimmie Fox was racing four wide with Salem last-place finisher the unsponsored #40 Carter 2 Motorsports Dodge of Matthew Logan, the unsponsored #6 Eddie Sharp Racing Chevrolet of Colin Dryburgh and Randy Ward as contact between Fox and Dryburgh caused the two cars to move up the track and into the outside wall, causing Dryburgh's car to flip over while Ward's car flew up into the air, nearly flying over the catch fence as a six car wreck would break out, with Ward being the only car to be scored not competing a lap, his car stopping just two hundred feet from the start/finish line while Dryburgh would limp around for a lap before pulling behind the wall while Logan would make it one extra lap before he made his trip to the garage, but it wasn't until Lap 4 that Ozkan would finally knock Ward back into the final spot.
37th was the #9 Aaron's / Hendrickcars.com Chevrolet of Tom Schmidt, who was running in the 14th spot during the second caution period, began to smoke and slow going down the backstretch, making it to pit road before pulling behind the wall, a quick look under the hood and it was discovered that the header was broken, ending their day after 10 laps.
Rounding out the Bottom Five in 36th was the unsponsored #99 Roulo Brothers Racing Ford of Grace Takayoma, who would be involved in two of the event's three big crashes, and while he did lose multiple laps to the leaders, he was the last driver to be running at the finish, 7 laps down to the race leaders.
SCRLASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first time the #4 has finished last in a ARCA race as well at Chicagoland.
*The last time a driver failed to finish a lap in the ARCA Series was the Pocono ARCA 200 at the Pocono Raceway when his Sebastian Cucalon's #19 Battomi-Lawton Insurance Dodge fell out with header problems without completing any of the 22 laps; 1 race ago.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #4-Randy Ward / 0 laps / crash
39) #6-Colin Dryburgh / 1 lap / crash
38) #40-Matthew Logan / 2 laps / crash
37) #9-Tom Schmidt / 10 laps / header
36) #99-Grace Takayoma / 26 laps / running
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