For the second consecutive race, the #71 KLAS Motorsports team with driver Andy Jankowiak found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time during an ARCA Menards Series race. They got caught up in a wreck that could not be avoided on Friday in the Henry Ford Health 200 at Michigan Speedway.
Unfortunately, the ensuing 15th-place finish may have put an end to the “bonus” part of their 2026 schedule. After the team won at Talladega Superspeedway and found themselves in contention for the series championship, team principal Kevin Lapierre added extra races to their part-time schedule. Those events were at Toledo Speedway (OH) and Michigan.
At Toledo, the #71 got caught behind two lapped cars that were spinning. This led to a wreck. At Michigan, the #71 got caught on the outside of two cars that made contact. This also led to a wreck.
With a pair of wrecked racecars, poor finishes in those two events and lack of primary sponsorship for next weekend’s event at Pocono Raceway (PA), the team will resume their part-time status unless a miracle last-second sponsor steps up very quickly.
“There are highs and lows in racing,” said Jankowiak. “It looks like we used a lot of our good fortune at Talladega. This is unfortunate and heartbreaking really. I hate letting Kevin and the team down. Michigan was a lot like Toledo. The car showed really good speed in practice. It acted a little different in traffic during the race, but we were building up some momentum.
“Two cars got together underneath us. We got caught up in it and that ruined our day. I think that we would have had a top five run otherwise because we really had some good speed in clean air.”
Jankowiak was credited with the 15th finishing position in the rain shortened race.
“We would have loved to continue to chase the championship, and we’ve got a great fleet of cars to do so,” said Managing Partner Andy Seuss. “We recently added another car to our fleet that we will be debuting soon. We continue to grow our team, and our recent speed has shown that, but our luck hasn’t been able to get the finishes we deserved. At this point, we will focus our resources and budget on continuing to pursue quality of races over quantity. We hope to add races and our goal is to get to the point we can compete full time, but right now our next race will be Chicago.”
The team are not hanging their heads though. They know that they have a lot to offer a potential marketing partner and they are proud of their growth into a race-winning organization.
“We are really encouraged by the speed that we are showing,” said Jankowiak. “We learn from every race and we are a lot smarter coming out of Michigan. It’s just unfortunate how things turned out. We will be back!”
The #71 featured a salute to racing legend Bentley Warren and his establishment Bentley’s Saloon in Arundel, Maine at Michigan Speedway. Associate sponsors for the race included Dak’s Markets, Acacia Energy, Automotive Consultants of Ithaca, Florida Safety Systems, Fair Lifts, Yukon Creek, Rotti Transport, Whelen Engineering and Schultz Engineered Products.