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TOLEDO, Ohio - His car was battered, its quarter panels and rear end nearly torn off, yet Jason Jarrett's ML Motorsports crew didn't seem to mind for the time being.
Rather than the ML Motorsports crew members complaining about having to rebody the No. 67 Monte Carlo, it was a sprint to the start-finish line to be with their driver, who for the final two laps of Sunday's ARCA RE/MAX Series race at Toledo Speedway battled door-to-door with NASCAR star Ken Schrader before finishing second at the Ohio short track for the third straight year.
"We're real happy, everyone was excited," said crew chief Tom Sokoloski. "We came over here to test last week and get him comfortable and I think it helped."
Jarrett finished third at Toledo Speedway during his rookie season of 2001 and has finished second in each race since.
Sunday's runner-up finish was his second runner-up finish in his last three races this season and moved him from fifth to third in the season point standings after five events.
For 150 laps of Sunday's Hickory Farms 200 presented by Federated Car Care, Jarrett ran just outside the top five, as his car was roughed up in typical short-track racing fashion.
With 50 laps to go Jarrett was in fourth behind Schrader, open wheel veteran A.J. Fike, and five-time ARCA champ Frank Kimmel. A restart on lap 192 saw Jarrett's No. 67 Gladiator GarageWorks-Bennigan's Chevy still in fourth, as Kimmel, Schrader, Billy Venturini and Jarrett were nose to tail for the next five laps.
Venturini worked his way around Schrader for second-place, and then on lap 197 brought out the 13th and final caution flag when he spun Kimmel's Ford while battling for the lead.
Venturini, driving a No. 25 Chevy for his father and two-time ARCA champ Bill Venturini, was then black flagged and dealt a stop-and-go penalty, setting up the dramatic finish between Schrader and Jarrett.
The caution laps from the Venturini-Kimmel accident took the lap total to 200, the scheduled number of circuits for Sunday's race, but under ARCA rules the race must finish in a green-white-checkered flag situation.
The race restarted on lap 203, and Jarrett shot to the outside to try and pass Schrader, who drove his No. 99 Pontiac to the bottom of the track.
The two battled door-to-door for the final two laps, bringing the crowd to its feet, before Schrader beat Jarrett to the line by .313 seconds.
"My crew kept yelling for me to go to the top," said Jarrett. "Schrader's car seemed to work best on the bottom, but we had our car working just as well in the second groove. I thought we were gonna pull it off for a while but Schrader got off the corners better than we did. It was a lof of. I knew we could race with him, so we gave it our best shot."
In 2000 the ML Motorsports No. 67 Chevy, then driven by Brian Ross, was in the lead in turn 3 on the last lap at Anderson Speedway before being spun by Schrader.
"This will definitely be easy to build from," Sokoloski said of the runner-up finish. "I think getting bumped around the first part of the race got him fired up."
Following Schrader and Jarrett in the top five were new Hendrick Motorsports signee Boston Reid, Ganassi Racing signee Ryan Hemphill, and ARCA veteran Mark Gibson.
Next on the ARCA RE/MAX Series schedule an event May 27 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
