Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
MARNE, Mich. - Bad things, it's been said many times before, happen in clusters of three.
ML Motorsports driver Jason Jarrett and crew chief Tom Sokoloski certainly hope it stops there.
For the third consecutive ARCA RE/MAX Series stock car race, Jarrett's day ended in disappointment, and with either a wrecked car or broken equipment.
At Michigan International Speedway, a wreck on lap 15 left the Warsaw-based team with a heavily damaged car and a 40th-place finish.
Last weekend in a short track battle at tiny South Boston Speedway, Jarrett was leading with 16 laps remaining, but a blown motor turned his best run of the season into a 19th-place finish.
And then Saturday at Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan, where Jarrett had raced three previous times, he had his best run going at the .4-mile track.
He was second quick in practice, and then was able to pass people with little trouble after qualifying seventh.
He ran no worse than eighth at any point, and then the unexpected happened on lap 109 of the 200-lap GFS Marketplace 200.
After the caution flag waved, Jarrett reached down to shift into a lower gear and his shifter wasn't there, as the 3/4-inch piece of aluminum bracket broke in two.
"I came out of (turn) four, and there was nothing there," said Jarrett, who ended up finishing 23rd. "I reached down and the shifter was laying on the floor board. That's supposed to be a strong piece of metal. It's supposed to be anyway."
And to make matters worse for Jarrett and his team, had it held together maybe 10 more laps, he would have finished in the top five, where he ran the majority of the race.
As Jarrett's crew quickly tried to fix the problem, the rest of the field circled Berlin Raceway under caution as rain soaked its surface.
The race was red flagged on lap 116 and never restarted.
Such has been the case the last three weekends for Jarrett and the ML Motorsports crew, whose members asked each other Saturday what they had to do to catch a break.
"That was definitely the best I've ran here," said Jarrett, standing in the infield holding an umbrella and referring to the way he was able to pass and stay near the front. "I think we've really turned the corner the last three weeks, we've just had some very unfortunate things happen."
As unfortunate as things have been for Jarrett, the exact opposite could be said for five-time champion and current point leader Frank Kimmel.
Kimmel, from Jeffersonville, drove away from the field and into victory lane after Jarrett's motor broke last week at South Boston.
Saturday he was leading when rain began to fall and eventually picked up his 53rd career ARCA win, moving him within one win from second on the all-time list.
Kimmel, who started fourth, led 65 of the 116 completed laps, and was followed in the top five by A.J. Fike, Billy Shotko, Brent Sherman and T.J. Bell.
Polesitter Fred Campbell, a 10-time late model champion at Berlin Raceway, led 36 laps. Sherman led 15 laps.
The past three weeks have dropped Jarrett in the season point standings and he now sits in sixth after 11 events, 40 points out of fifth and just 25 points ahead of seventh place.
Kimmel leads the season standings and holds a 355-point advantage over runner-up Brent Sherman, who qualifed second and finished fourth Saturday. Following Kimmel and Sherman in the top five point positions are Billy Venturini, Mark Gibson and Bell.
Next on the ARCA RE/MAX Series schedule is a 150-mile race Friday at Kentucky Speedway.
