Malsam matches career-high with 3rd in ARCA race in N.J.

Published 4:03 pm Sunday, September 28, 2008

MILLVILLE, N. J. — Tayler Malsam hopes to finish the ARCA RE/MAX season strong, while at the same time adding to his workload in the NASCAR truck series.

The Mill Creek, Wash., resident took a step toward his ARCA goal by matching his series career-high finish on Sunday, coming in third in the rain-shortened Loud Energy Drink 150 at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

“I’ve run road courses before, so it wasn’t my first rodeo,” Malsam said by phone. “Fortunately the rain fell so we ended up where we did.”

Justin Allgaier won the race in his first road-course start. He pitted ahead of the leaders but found himself out front when the rain began to fall. Series officials called the race 19 laps short of the scheduled 67-lap, 150 mile distance.

Colin Braun, who took over for Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. during a caution on lap 3, finished second. Stenhouse was injured in a midget car crash one week ago at Eldora Speedway.

Malsam qualified fifth but ran in fourth place for much of the race. He lost some ground after pitting but made it up when polesitter Andy Lally and Scott Speed — who ran 1-2, respectively, most of the race —pitted.

“We had about a third-place car,” Malsam said. “We were definitely faster than Allgaier and Colin, but the caution came out and we couldn’t get past them.”

Lally finished fourth and Speed, whose series points lead was cut to 65 over Stenhouse, came in eighth and Brian Scott rounded out the top five.

Malsam’s third-place matched his series-best finish which came on June 7 at the Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa. And it helped him move up to sixth from 10th in the series points list.

Driving the Dodge Development No. 4 Charger for Cunningham Motorsports, Malsam came into Sunday’s race after back-to-back disappointing series finishes.

He finished 39th in the Chicagoland ARCA 200 on Sept. 6 in Joilet, Ill., and was 20th in the Eddie Gilstrap Motors 200 on Sept. 13 at Salem (Ind.) Speedway.

With just two more ARCA RE/MAX Series races on his schedule, at Talladega, Ala., and Toledo, Ohio, Malsam is hoping Sunday’s result is the beginning of a strong season finish.

“The Dodges draft really good at Talladega,” Malsam said. “We were good at Toledo there earlier this year, but really good there last year.”

“We should be top five in both places,” he added.

Malsam, who is originally from Sammamish, Wash., made his first ARCA RE/MAX Series start at Toledo in 2007.

In addition to the ARCA races, Malsam is slated to make five more starts in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series for CHS Motorsports, a division of Cunningham Motorsports.

Before making his Truck Series debut on Aug. 20 at Bristol, Malsam said he was looking to make a total of five starts: Bristol, Martinsville, Texas, Phoenix and Lowe’s Motorspeedway in Charlotte, N.C.

Since then, the season-ending race at Homestead, Fla., has been added.