Kole Raz achieves redemption with dominant Chilly Willy victory at Tucson Speedway

One year ago, Kole Raz fell just a few feet short of winning the Chilly Willy 150 at Tucson Speedway. On Saturday night at the 3/8-mile oval, Raz made up for that defeat by holding off 2023 ARCA Menards Series West champion Sean Hingorani for his first victory in the prestigious, season-opening event. Raz dominated the second half of the race, which was marred by more than a dozen yellows and multiple red flags. With 78 laps to go, he took the lead from Kyle Reid, who fell out of the race shortly after following a tire failure. RELATED: Complete results from the 2024 Chilly Willy 150 Raz spent the rest of the race battling Hinograni for the lead. Hingorani challenged Raz for the lead during every restart, but each time, once Raz got a few laps under his belt, he pulled away. The final caution flag waved with nine laps left, when Joe Paladenic made contact with the outside wall and subsequently slowed to a stop. Hingorani gave it his all during the final nine-lap dash to the checkered flag and was able to get to Raz’s bumper with a few laps left, but he was unable to complete the pass. Raz held on for the victory to earn the $15,000 top prize. “I love racing here; it’s so much fun. [It has] multi-lane abilities, and it just provides some great racing,” Raz said. “I’ve been wanting this one for a while.” Kasey Kleyn finished third, with the father-son pairing of Bruce and Brett Yackey finishing fourth and fifth, respectively. John Dillon, Zandar Peters, Rudy Vanderwal, Darrell Midgley and David Smith completed the top-10. Only eight of the 28 starters finished on the lead lap.