Kyle Busch celebrates with his crew after winning Tuesday night’s Howie Lettow Memorial at The Milwaukee Mile. Photo courtesy ARCA Midwest Tour Media
Ordinarily in poker a pair will always beat one of a kind.
However, in the Swiss Colony Howie Lettow Memorial 150 presented by RaceTeamGear.com at the Milwaukee mile in West Allis, WI, Kyle Busch held off both Travis and Johnny Sauter to capture the checkers in ARCA Midwest Tour presented by Lester Buildings and Scag Power Equipment race that was unfortunately cut short by darkness after only 115 laps.
“It’s awesome to come out to Milwaukee,” said Busch. “My dad grew up coming to these races here, Indy Car races, NASCAR races. Me, I like coming to the Mile. I love Super Late Model racing, so this is like the best mix in the world for me. Especially coming here with the memorial for Howie Lettow and his race and being his name that’s on it and being able to compete with the rest of the ARCA Midwest Tour. It was really a lot of fun and I had a great time while we were here.
“There’s nothing sweeter than being able to win the race of course and end up in victory lane but it’s a true testament to this team everybody that works so hard on this car and brought a really good piece for me to drive.”
Busch’s piece was so good for him to drive that it seemed like he was in a world of his own. He set fast time in qualifying and quickly got to the front after having to start 14th with the invert. By lap nine he was already pressuring Boris Jurkovic for the lead, and just a lap later he made the pass and set sail.
Once in the lead, Busch simply drove away from the competition, opening up as much as a four second lead over the rest of the field.
A yellow flag on lap 20 when Johnny Van Doorn stopped in turn 4 bunched up the field and perhaps gave the rest of the field a chance to move in on Busch. When the cone came out, Travis and Johnny Sauter were able to move up on the outside and into the top five.
As the green flag flew Busch easily put some distance between himself and Jurkovic, while Johnny Sauter moved around Travis and quickly moved closer to the front. Sauter’s march towards the front would be slowed by another yellow on lap 33, when James Swan crashed hard into the sand barrels that protected the pit road wall, collecting Mason Mingus and Erik Darnell in the process.
Another green flag meant another great restart by Busch. However, Johnny Sauter was on his bumper, meaning Busch would not get away as quickly. The duo steadily pulled away from the field, putting several car lengths between themselves and third place Jurkovic.
With 60 laps in the books, Travis Sauter moved around Jurkovic for the third spot and was starting to gain on Busch and Johnny. Just seven laps later, a spin by Bryan Ortiz forced another yellow. ARCA Midwest Tour officials decided to just simply run off the remaining eight laps to get to the halfway break at lap 75.
The 10 minute break didn’t seem to have much of an effect on Busch or the Sauters. Busch got another great restart, but Johnny wasn’t letting him get away.
Busch then put the hammer down and began to pull away from the pack. Former World Crown 300 winner Chris Wimmer closed in on Johnny Sauter, but slipped up high in turn 1 on lap 98, allowing Travis Sauter to second spot. However by this time Busch’s lead had grown to almost a full straightaway.
Travis slowly closed on Busch, but he was running out of both time and daylight. On lap 109 it was decided by the ARCA Midwest Tour officials that it was getting way too dark to continue. They made the call to throw the checkers at lap 115 instead of lap 150. Travis made a valiant effort to cut into Busch’s lead, but in the end the gap was just too big to overcome. Busch would flash across the finish line nearly three seconds ahead of Travis and another three seconds back to Johnny in third.
For Busch it was a win that makes running the Super Late Model all that much more worthwhile.
“The starting back in 14th was kind of fun,” said Busch. “It was a little dicey early there passing some cars and what not, but we got out to the front relatively early, actually a lot sooner than I expected. We were cruising out there a little bit and Johnny Sauter there on that one restart gave me a run for my money there for a while. He kept diving under me and I wasn’t sure if he was going to get me or not. He was close but we had a really good long run car. Our car would just run the same lap time all day long.”
Jacob Goede, and Wimmer rounded out the top five.
ARCA Midwest Tour
The Milwaukee Mile – West Allis, WI
Howie Lettow Memorial – July 9, 2013
1. 51 – Kyle Busch
2. 5S – Travis Sauter
3. 5J – Johnny Sauter
4. 8G – Jacob Goede
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6. 87N – Joe Nemecheck
7. 64M – Griffin McGrath
8. 36 – Dan Fredrickson
9. 77R – David Ragan
10. 12K – Becca Kasten
11. 87 – Nathan Haseleu
12. 8N – John Hunter Nemecheck
13. 71B – Kyle Benjamin
14. 35 – David Stremme
15. 89 – Matt Tifft
16. 47 – Trey Mitchell
17. 4J – Erik Jones
18. 25S – Jeff Storm
19. 66W – Steve Wallace
20. 9 – Mark Kraus
21. 8H – Eddie Hoffman
22. 78 – Skylar Holzhausen
23. 75W – Chris Weinkauf
24. 25K – Ross Kenseth
25. 43K – Matt Kocourek
26. 36W – Kenny Wallace
27. 4O – Bryan Ortiz
28. 7TD – Travis Dassow
29. 42F – Chad Finley
30. 40 – Jeremy Lepak
31. 53 – Boris Jurkovic
32. 6H – Brandon Hermiller
33. 45 – Rich Bickle
34. 77 – Jonathan Eilen
35. 39 – Andrew Morrissey
36. 7D – Erik Darnell
37. 811 – Mason Mingus
38. 97 – James Swan
39. 61 – Johnny VanDoorn
40. 58 – Cardell Potter
41. 20 – Matt Kenseth
42. 5 – Jeremy Miller
43. 29 – Brett Moffitt
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