By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor
MADISON, Ill. — Neither Riley Herbst nor Zane Smith made a lot of noise on Saturday night. The two ARCA Racing Series competitors simply put together two solid drives to end their debuts with a top 10.
That’s not a bad thing for either driver. In fact, it was exactly the sort of runs they were hoping for.
Smith and Herbst survived a chaotic 160 laps at Gateway Motorsports Park to earn finishes of fifth and eighth, respectively, in Saturday’s Villa Lighting Delivers the Eaton 200. The runs each came for the drivers in their first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts.
The top five for Smith was an unexpected on, coming at the end of a race that saw him running as high as fourth and as low as the back half of the top 20. The DGR-Crosley prospect’s result easily exceeded his expectations going into he night, because he couldn’t picture himself running up front with the issues he faced early on.
“Not from the start of the green, there,” Smith said. “We could not get this (truck) from third to fourth. I don’t know what that was all about.”
Herbst’s felt he could have ran better than eighth in his No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota, but the Nevadan couldn’t complain after accomplishing his goal of completing all 160 laps.
“I just wanted to finish all of the laps,” he told Kickin’ the Tires. “I definitely feel like we could have finished fifth or so, but I made some late-race mistakes on restarts. It is what it is, I guess. But the truck’s in one piece, and I’m happy about that.”
Both Smith and Herbst expressed the same massive learning experience in their truck debuts – restarts. On the track position dependent Gateway oval, making up ground on restarts proved paramount to success. Both Smith and Herbst struggled, resulting in finishes that they felt could have been improved.
“I figured out the hard way that clean air is the goal in these things,” Smith said. “The restarts there were just shuffles all the way back. And we would have to get all of the way back to the front. Once we would get somewhat towards the front, a caution would come out. And then just a repeat.
“But it was fun. I will definitely take that for how our night unfolded. There are a ton of people I have to thank. The whole DGR team. My mom and dad. The fans for coming out. Hopefully it was a good show to watch.”
Herbst claimed the aggression of the restarts to be the factor that caught him off-guard.
“Those guys were really aggressive on restarts, and I learned a lot about that tonight,” he said. “I made a lot of mistakes that I have to clean up on my end, and that cost us a better result so that sucks. But I learned and the truck’s in one piece, so that’s a good deal.”
The eighth-place result for Herbst came just one week after a strong sixth-place run in his Xfinity Series debut at Iowa Speedway. But the Joe Gibbs Racing prospect shied away from taking credit for his results, claiming he owed them to his equipment.
“It’s just a testament to the team,” Herbst said of his early success. “I’m just a new driver trying to learn the ranks and get as much experience as I can, and they gave me a great ride. I can’t thank Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch Motorsports enough for giving me the equipment I need to perform and go get top 10 finishes.”
Both Herbst and Smith will return to ARCA competition next week, competing at Chicagoland Speedway on June 28. They’ll each do so with the confidence boost of early NASCAR success.