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GLADEVILLE, Tenn. - A fan of the rock band Aerosmith, 25-year-old ML Motorsports driver Chad Blount now has a brand new Gibson Les Paul guitar to learn how to play.
In just his second race with Warsaw-based ML Motorsports, Blount, who graduated from Glenn High School in Walkerton before moving to North Carolina, qualified fifth and won Saturday's PFG Lester 150 ARCA RE/MAX Series race at Nashville Superspeedway.
While race winners at most tracks are given trophies, the winning driver of all races at the 1.33-mile concrete Nashville Superspeedway is given a Gibson Les Paul guitar painted by NASCAR artist Sam Bass.
"This is a good rebound from Daytona," Blount said in victory lane. "We've been close here before, but this is a big win for us. I really wanted that guitar."
Blount, who signed with ML Motorsports in the offseason after the team released Jason Jarrett, was caught in a six-car crash in the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway and finished 33rd.
His win Saturday, which was the fifth of his 31-race ARCA career and was shown live on the Speed Channel, moved him from 33rd in the season point standings to seventh.
After beating nearly a half-dozen teams off pit road - including a pit crew from Evernham Motorsports - Blount passed two cars on a restart and took the lead for the first time on lap 84 of what was scheduled to be a 113-lap race.
Because of some late-race cautions, the race ended up being 119 laps and Blount was strong on the final two restarts, including one with a lap to go, as he held off 20-year-old rookie Joey Miller's Dodge by .183 seconds at the line.
"The car was good, but there toward the end I used everything it had to win the race," Blount said in victory lane.
Mario Gosselin finished third, while Chevy White and Brandon Knupp rounded out the top five.
Six-time ARCA champ Frank Kimmel finished seventh, while former ML Motorsports driver Jason Jarrett qualified 32nd and finished ninth. Jarrett, subbing for the injured Billy Venturini, was in fifth place for the last restart but was passed by three cars on the final lap.
Among other notable drivers, pole-sitter Erin Crocker finished 12th in an Everenham Motorsports Dodge, while Tandy Marlin, cousin of NASCAR driver Sterling Marlin, was 23rd.
Crocker led the first 28 laps of the race and later tried to take the lead from Blount but spun out while trying to do so, bringing out one of the late-race cautions.
Marlin led laps 39-72 after opting to stay out as the leaders headed for pit road and ran his No. 77 Dodge out of fuel.
In all, Blount led 36 laps, the most of any driver.
Counting Jarrett's win at Salem Speedway in the second-to-last event of the 2004 season, ML Motorsports has won two of the last four races in the ARCA RE/MAX Series.
The team will next compete April 24 at the half-mile Salem Speedway. In his last appearance at Salem, Blount finished third.
