Parker Kligerman - Mike Ruefer photo!
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NEWTON IA (7-11-09) - Apparently, there's no stopping 18-year-old ARCA RE/MAX Series rookie Parker Kligerman, not lately anyway. The Westport, Connecticut driver drove away from Richard Childress Racing's (RCR) Austin Dillon after the final restart Saturday night at Iowa Speedway to win the Prairie Meadows 200, his fourth victory in the last five events on tour.
This one's for my crew," said Kligerman, who continued to pad his point lead in the process.
"We started off this weekend making a lot of changes after practice because we wanted to be good for qualifying and the car wasn't quite right during practice. That was unusual for us because normally we're good right off of the truck but we didn't get to test here so it affected us heading into the race weekend.
"At the beginning of the race the 16 [Joey Coulter] was faster than us. Then we made a pit stop and the crew made some adjustments and the track started to come to us and we picked up some speed. I just want to thank Kerry Scherer, Briggs Cunningham, Mark Gibson, my crew chief Chris Carrier and everyone at Penske Racing. We seem to be doing really well this year and we won again tonight so I think we picked up some points in the championship race."
Kligerman, in the Cunningham Motorsports Dodge, led 142 of 200 laps, including the final 52 circuits en route to his fourth series victory in only his 12th series start.
Dillon had the best opportunity to challenge the eventual winner during a late-race restart under 20 laps to go, but just couldn't get close enough to make a difference. Nonetheless, Dillon still finished second albeit nearly three seconds away.
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<td><span style="color: #ffffff">Parker Kligerman battles Austin Dillon. -- Mike Ruefer Photo!</span></td>
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"That's twice that we have lost it to Parker [Kligerman]," said Dillon who also finished second to Kligerman at Michigan Int'l Speedway. "I have to congratulate our team; they've been good all year. We don't get to come out and race with the ARCA RE/MAX Series every weekend but whenever we do we have a great time. If we ever get a chance to actually start up front in one of these races I think we would have a chance to win. We used up our car trying to work up to the front."
Dillon, who was fastest in practice, had to go to a back-up car for the race after he damaged his primary car in qualifying after spinning off turn two.
"After starting at the end for switching to a backup car after that qualifying mishap, it was a good race overall. This is a tough track. Very physically demanding. You have to work hard to pass. I'm going to come back for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race and I think racing here in the ARCA RE/MAX Series will help me when I come back because we learned a lot".
Joey Coulter, in the Darrell Gwynn Foundation-Tempest Cycles Chevrolet, had the fastest car at the beginning of the race and led 47 laps overall before his car tightened up too much at the end.
"The last set of tires we just tightened up a little bit," said Coulter. "We tested here and we were fastest at the test. We were real fast in practice yesterday and we qualified on the pole so needless to say this is one of my favorite racetracks that I've run on so far. I've got to congratulate Parker [Kligerman, race winner]; he is really on a roll right now."
Coulter also earned his career-first Menards Pole Award presented by Ansell earlier in the day.
Sixteen-year-old Chris Buescher battled from one lap down to finish fourth in the David Ragan Fan Club Ford.
Brian Ickler was fifth in the BrianIckler.com Toyota.
The next event for the ARCA RE/MAX Series will be the Click It or Ticket Buckle-Up Kentucky 150 Saturday night, July 18th in conjunction with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
