ARCA Midget: Race long battle at Baer Field ends with Michael Collins getting the first last-place finish of his career

Michael Collins picked up the 1st last place finish of his SCRL ARCA Midget Series career in the Baer 100 at the Baer Field Speedway when his #5 completed all 30 laps under power.

The finish came in his 12th career series start. In the SCRL ARCA Midget Series, it's the 1st for car #5 and the 8th where the car was still running. Across all the series in the SCRL, it's the 17th for the #5 and the 262nd where the vehicle was still running.

Michael was one of the SCRL's newest driver to sign up to compete, choosing to sign up to competing in the SCRL's lowest ARCA division, the ARCA Midget Series. In his first ever SCRL start, Michael finished a 11th in his debut at Toledo, a disappointing 19th at Salem, 4th at Flat Rock, 2nd at Devil's Bowl, 4th at Kil-Kare, 20th at Indianapolis Speedrome, 12th at Santa Fe, 18th at Columbus, 17th at Grundy County, 6th at Eldora before finishing 10th in the last round at New Egypt.

In qualifying, Sebastian Dent scored his first career series pole with a time of 21.043 seconds with Michael posting a time of 21.423 seconds, 0.380 seconds behind Dent's pole run, placing Michael 12th on the grid while starting last was the #24 of Michael Brown, 0.749 seconds off Dent's pole sitting time.

Michael Brown's stay in the final spot would be very brief as he would knocked the #12 of Nick Kennedy into the final spot to complete the first lap, before knocking Brown back to last on Lap 2, before Brown would work his way past two time last-place finisher the #21 of John Hunter into last on Lap 3. Hunter would stay in last for the next two laps before passing the #90 of Christian Vargas into last on Lap 5. Vargas would stay in last till Lap 9 when he knocked the #14 of Taylor Dent into last. Dent would struggle to stay caught up with the field for a few laps as he cooled down his tires before working his way up a spot, knocking the #34 of Conner Thunder into last on Lap 15. Thunder would remain in last for the next three laps before knocking Michael Collins into last for the first time. Collins would slowly begin to loose touch with the drivers in front of him, and by the end of the race he was a full second behind the driver in front, while finishing a full 15 seconds behind the race leaders.

The remaining Bottom Five were: 19th was the #21 of John Hunter, 18th was Eldora last-place finisher the #04 of Mario Junqueira, 17th was Kil-Kare last-place finisher the #8 of Juniper Skunktaur and 16th was the #34 of Conner Thunder.

SCRLASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first time the #5 has finished last in the SCRL ARCA Midget Series as well at Baer Field.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
20) #5-Michael Collins / 30 laps / running
19) #21-John Hunter / 30 laps / running
18) #04-Mario Junqueira / 30 laps / running
17) #8-Juniper Skunktaur / 30 laps / running
16) #34-Conner Thunder / 30 laps / running