Seventeen-year-old Casey Roderick has submitted an entry to drive in the Prairie Meadows 200 at Iowa Speedway, along the way citing his intent to add the ARCA Racing Series Presented by RE/MAX and Menards as his main focus for the remainder of 2010.
Roderick, of Lawrenceville, Ga., won the pole at Palm Beach International Raceway in February in advance of just his second career ARCA Racing Series start, only months after finishing second in his series debut at Rockingham Speedway.
A protégé of 1988 NASCAR champion Bill Elliott, Roderick will scrap his late model schedule and focus on ARCA behind the wheel of the No. 51 Bill Elliott Driver Development Dodge. The car will be fielded by James Finch.
“We had a model car and a sponsorship, which is a family owned business here in Dawsonville, and they decided to pull out because business wasn’t doing the best the past few months, so that put us in a position to where we had to make a decision on what we wanted to do and what would further my career,” Roderick said in a team release. “So we decided on focusing on these ARCA races and trying to give me the opportunity to race some Nationwide events at the end of the year. Bill (Elliott) thought this would be the best thing to do.”
Finch was instrumental in the development of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Brad Keselowski, and has in Roderick a racing student who was added to the Elliott development program at just 15 years old. He hopes Roderick’s development will result in a move to NASCAR later this year.
“I hope the experience Casey gains on the bigger tracks will garner him approval from NASCAR to race in the Nationwide Series at Phoenix this November,” Finch said. “I am looking forward to racing with Casey.”
Practice for the Prairie Meadows 200 at Iowa Speedway begins at 10 a.m. Central (11 a.m. Eastern) on Saturday, July 10, with live timing and scoring and live audio coverage presented by ARCA Nation at ARCARacing.com.
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