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SALEM - Sunday's Kentuckiana Ford Dealers 200 wasn't a masterpiece for ML Motorsports driver Jason Jarrett, but it's the big picture that's starting to take shape for the 27-year-old and his Warsaw team.
Though he battled a loose car in the early going, Jarrett drove his purple No. 67 Pontiac to a sixth-place finish in Sunday's 200-lap ARCA RE/MAX Series event at the famed high banks of Salem Speedway, moving him from sixth to fourth in the season standings.
After a fourth-place effort and a pair of runner-up finishes in his first three starts at Salem - known as the north's version of Bristol Motor Speedway for its high banks and attrition - Jarrett was 14th and sixth in his last two outings.
"The last two times we've come here it's been survival more than anything," Jarrett said. "We were too loose when we started today but we got better as we went on."
With his second top 10 in four races this year, Jarrett now sits 15 points out of third in the season standings and only 60 out of second place.
In a race that saw its share of typical short-track bumping and banging, 17-year-old Greenwood driver Shelby Howard picked up his first career ARCA win, leading 76 of the 200 laps and holding off four-time series champ Frank Kimmel in a three-lap sprint to the finish after a late caution.
Kimmel, who sat on the pole Sunday for the sixth consecutive time at Salem, started from the rear of the field after swapping engines after qualifiying and was denied his sixth-straight victory at the high-banked speedway.
Following Howard and Kimmel in the top five were Billy Venturini, Paul Menard and Andy Belmont.
Menard, son of home improvement store owner John Menard, started second in his Andy Petree Racing Chevy and led the first 22 laps of the race, 26 overall.
With the series now turning to Sunday's race at Toledo Speedway, where Jarrett has finishes of third and second in two career starts, Kimmel leads the point standings, followed in the top five by Venturini, Mark Gibson, Jarrett and Ron Cox.
