Queen Leads Them All In Monster Mile ARCA Rout

Brenden Queen celebrates his ARCA win at Dover Motor Speedway Friday. (Peter Casey/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

DOVER, Del. – Dover Motor Speedway mascot ‘Miles the Monster’ didn’t scare Brenden Queen, as the 28 year-old from Chesapeake, Va., led every lap en route to a dominant ARCA Menards Series victory Friday evening.

Queen started from the pole and made earning his fourth victory of the season look easy in the No. 28 Best Repair Co. Chevrolet for Pinnacle Racing Group, giving the team its second straight checkered flag at the high-banked one-mile concrete oval.

Dover marked Queen’s most laps led this season by both percentage and overall laps.

It’s his first victory on a track smaller than 1.5 miles in length, with his previous wins coming at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway, Kansas Speedway, and Michigan Int’l Speedway, respectively.

The final caution of the race came out with 50 laps left, a scheduled competition caution, and from there Queen never looked back and crossed the finish line with an impressive gap of 7.130 seconds to runner-up Camden Murphy.

The only true nervous moment for Queen was during the second segment, when his lead gap over Murphy dwindled to less than a half second as he battled the handling after a truck-arm slug worked loose underneath the No. 28.

Queen had high praise for his PRG team following the lights-out performance, in a race that combined the national ARCA Menards Series with the regional ARCA Menards Series East.

“This team is so bad to the bone, I thought it was over, I thought something broke there,” Queen said on the frontstretch. “That was a bad to the bone racecar.

After the initial green flag, Queen and Brent Crews broke out to a massive gap over the rest of the field, up until Crews cut a right-front tire and made hard contact with the wall on lap 45.

The car burst into flames before stopping at the end of the frontstretch, but Crews climbed out unhurt, though his day was ended early.

Another caution for a spinning Corey Aiken on lap 91 and the competition caution on lap 100 bunched the field back up, but no one could hold a candle to Queen, who convincingly pulled away from the rest of the field en route to the victory.

Murphy put on an incredible showing in his first ARCA Series start, rolling off the grid from sixth and working his way up into second twice in the second half of the race. A pair of sluggish restarts set Murphy back midway through, but he rallied to reclaim the runner-up honors by race’s end.

While he didn’t have anything for Queen, Murphy certainly impressed and turned many heads with this performance in his national ARCA Menards Series debut.

Murphy was over the moon with his day and expressed his gratitude to rapper J. Cole, who came onboard to sponsor him for the Dover event through Cole’s ‘Dreamer’ brand.

“Full circle man … two years ago I met J. Cole, one of the most down-to-earth people you will ever meet. It felt like we were on the phone for hours… [J. Cole] said he believed in my dreams,” said Murphy. “We didn’t know what it looked like, but after two years we finally put it all together and I am thankful to J. Cole for everything. This is super cool, dude!”

Isabella Robusto matched her best finish of the season in third, while ARCA Menards Series East regulars Isaac Kitzmiller and Tyler Reif came in fourth and fifth, respectively.

A hard-fought day for Timmy Hill, who ran as far up as second at one point, ended in sixth. Jake Finch and Jason Kitzmiller rounded out the lead lap finishers in seventh and eighth.

Fast Track Racing’s Zachary Tinkle picked up his third straight ARCA East top 10 in ninth – a lap off the pace – and Andrew Patterson rounded out the top 10, though he was four laps down.

Notably, the No. 6 of Lavar Scott was battling an ill-handling racecar after touching the wall in the early stages of the race, which essentially ended his chances of finishing inside the top 10.

Scott was able to finish 11th, an impressive result considering the circumstances, though both Scott and 12th-place Lawless Alan gave up ground to Queen in the ARCA point standings.

Queen continues a busy weekend Saturday night by returning to his late model roots at his home track, Langley Speedway in Virginia, for the Hampton Heat 200 – a race he won a year ago.

The driver nicknamed ‘Butterbean’ hopes to add a second trophy to the one he’s already taking back from Dover.

“I told [my team] I wanted a Monster to take back to Hampton for the Hampton Heat tomorrow night,” Queen said. “That bad boy is going on a road trip tonight.”

Next week, the ARCA Menards Series will head west to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, the second combination race with the ARCA East field in as many weeks.

Coverage of the LiUNA 150 presented by Dutch Boy from IRP airs Friday, July 25 at 5:30 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the FOX Sports App, and select affiliates of the Motor Racing Network.