Queen holds off 17-year-old Crews to win Atlas 150 at Iowa

The distance between Brenden Queen and Brent Crews in Friday night’s ARCA Menards Series Atlas 150 was .412 seconds.

The time between Crews and third-place finisher Lawless Alan was much more than that.

Queen and Crews dominated the latest ARCA race at Iowa Speedway and the man they call “Butterbean” held off a late charge from Crews to win his fifth race of the season.

“You have to be in it to win it, and all it takes is a lap car and you are back in it or out of it,” Queen said. “The older I get I just learn to not panic.”

The only thing that slowed Queen down on Friday was lap traffic. It slowed him down last week against Crews, too, and he finished third on that short track at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.

Queen got over the hump to grab his first win of the season on a short track. This time, he held off Crews after being held up at the Turn 4 exit by Quinn Davis.

The 17-year-old Crews dove underneath and made contact with Queen’s left-rear panel after Mason Mitchell took the high line.

Queen overcame the contact this time and edged Crews by less than a half-second in the 150-lap race.

“I thought the lap cars were going to get me again,” Queen said. “We’ve raced against each other hard, and we know how hard we can push each other. He’s super talented and we’re pushing each other to be better.

“With six to go, we went for the same spot and drove the wheels off it.”

You have to have a short memory. Last week didn’t go how we wanted it to, but I hit the reset button. I put all my mind into Iowa, studied up and prepared for this one.”

Lawless Alan was 8.404 seconds back in third and Isabella Robusto edged Lavar Scott for fourth.

Mitchell, a West Des Moines native, placed ninth but was a lap down after spinning out on lap 104. There were only seven cars on the lead lap.

“We had a really good race car all day,” Crews said. “We had a lot of raw speed and were really good that first stage. The whole Joe Gibbs Racing crew did a great job all day, but I feel like we missed a little bit there [at the end]. We got inside of Brenden [Queen] there and got super loose. I felt like that was my last chance at it.

“Obviously, I had no intention of wrecking him, but I’m glad we both got out of there cleanly.”

Crews, who has won two of the five races he’s competed in this season, was nearly 1 mile per hour faster than Queen in qualifying. Only three drivers were clocked faster than 135 miles per hour and Crews set an ARCA track record at 136.707.

The top five at practice were Crews, Queen, Alan, Scott and Robusto and the top five at qualifying were Crews, Queen, Alan, Scott and Sam Corry with Robusto starting sixth.

Mitchell was the 10th-fastest at practice and started eighth in the race.

There were three cautions in the first 50 laps, but two of them were the competition cautions that came at lap 25, 50 and 100.

Queen and Crews were either first or second throughout the race, but the top five also mostly featured Scott, Alan and Robusto. Mitchell was fifth after 40 laps, dropped to sixth after 50 laps and fell to seventh at the halfway point of the race.

Alan earned his sixth top-three finish in the last seven races, all while Robusto claimed her third consecutive top five with a fourth-place run. Scott rounded out the top five after rebounding from an earlier spin.

The rest of the top 10 consisted of ARCA Menards Series East points leader Isaac Kitzmiller, Corry, Eloy Falcon, Mitchell and Jason Kitzmiller.

Queen (602) improved his points lead to 33 over Alan (569) and Scott (556) is currently third with eight races to go. Queen has 10 top-five finishes in 12 starts and Scott has 11 top 10s in 12 starts.

“It’s been an awesome season,” Queen said. “I can’t lie, if I came up short now, I would be down in the dumps, but I also proved I can do it. I would be happy with the way I ran. I want to win 10 races, but I would sacrifice the 10 for a season championship.”

Notes: Crews came into the weekend with two wins in the four ARCA races he competed in. … Corry raced in his second ARCA race of the season. There have been 121 drivers who have at least one start in the series. … Kadence Davenport caused multiple cautions in the race. She spun out on lap 62 and lap 92. … Mitchell started eighth at 133.389 miles per hour. He was one of eight drivers to go faster than 132 miles per hour in qualifying.