The 2020 ARCA Menards Series West was the sixty-seventh season of the ARCA Menards Series West, a regional stock car racing series sanctioned by NASCAR. It began on February 20 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring with the Star Nursery 150, and ended on November 6 at ISM Raceway with the Arizona Lottery 100.
2020 marked the first season of this series under the ARCA banner.
When the season was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drivers from all NASCAR series, including a few ARCA Menards Series drivers, participated in the inaugural eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series during that time.
Teams and drivers Complete schedule Manufacturer Team Driver Crew chief Ford Sunrise Ford Racing 6 Trevor Huddleston Bill Sedgwick 9 Blaine Perkins Jeff Schrader Toyota Bill McAnally Racing 16 Gio Scelzi (R) John Camilleri 19 Jesse Love (R) Kyle Wolosek Jason Dickenson 99 Gracie Trotter (R) Roger Bracken Central Coast Racing 13 Todd Souza Michael Muñoz Performance P-1 Motorsports 77 Takuma Koga Ron Norman Gere Kennon Jr. Will Harris Chris Greaney Toyota Chevrolet Hillis Racing Bobby Hillis Jr. Henry Manh Ed Ash
Limited schedule Manufacturer Team Driver Crew chief Rounds Chevrolet Chad Bryant Racing 22 Kris WrightEntry was fielded in a collaboration with GMS Racing. Paul Andrews Fast Track Racing 10 Cody Erickson Mike Sroufe GMS Racing 21 Sam Mayer Mardy Lindley Kart Idaho Racing 11 Chris Lowden Sonny Wahl Dustin Ash Legal Limit Motorsports 80 Brian Kamisky Derek Copeland Steve McGowan Motorsports Zane Smith Sean Samuels Win-Tron Racing 32 Howie DiSavino III Jamie Jones Zach Telford Racing 17 Zach Telford Danny Christiani Ford Borneman Motorsports 8 Johnny Borneman III Will Harris DGR-Crosley 4 David Gilliland Derek Smith 17 Taylor Gray Blake Bainbridge Seth Smith Chad Johnston 54 Todd Gilliland Chris Lawson JP Racing 7 Austin Reed Jerry Pitts Kris Wright Devin Dodson Kyle Keller Rette Jones Racing 30 Justin Lofton Mark Rette Toyota Bill McAnally Racing Lawless Alan (R) Gary Collins Alex Sedgwick Kevin Bellicourt 50 Holley Hollan (R) Henry Nascimento Fast Track Racing 12 Chris HackerEntry was fielded in a collaboration with Cram Racing Enterprises. Kevin Cram Joe Gibbs Racing 18 Ty Gibbs Mark McFarland Naake-Klauer Motorsports Joey Iest Mike Naake Velocity Racing 78 Jack Wood Ty Joiner Venturini Motorsports 15 Drew Dollar Shannon Rursch 20 Ryan Repko Kevin Reed Jr. Corey Heim Billy Venturini 25 Mason Diaz Kevin Reed Keith Rocco Chevrolet Ford Jefferson Racing 42 Will Rodgers Jeff Jefferson Brittney Zamora Chevrolet Toyota BMI Racing 88 Bridget Burgess Sarah Burgess
Notes
Changes Teams On August 14, 2019, longtime West Series team Jefferson Pitts Racing announced that they would be splitting up into two teams, with Jeff Jefferson owning Jefferson Racing (and the new No. 42 car) and Jerry Pitts owning JP Racing (and the previously existing No. 7 car). This continued into 2020, with both teams running part-time schedules. Bill McAnally Racing announced that they would be fielding four full-time teams in 2020 (up from three in 2019), with their No. 50 Toyota, previously a part-time car, running full-time in 2020 along with the Nos. 16, 19, and 99. However, on January 31, 2020, they announced a fifth full-time car, the No. 12, for Lawless Alan, who drove the same car part-time last season. This brought BMR up to five full-time teams for five rookie drivers. Venturini Motorsports fielded a West Series team for the first time in 2020, with Corey Heim driving a car for them at Sonoma and the season finale at Phoenix (as well as three races in the ARCA East Series and two in the ARCA Menards Series).
Drivers On January 14, 2020, Bill McAnally Racing announced their 2020 driver lineup, with all four of their drivers new to the team and running for rookie of the year. Gio Scelzi replaced 2019 champion Derek Kraus in the No. 16, who moved to the Truck Series full-time with the team. Jesse Love replaced Hailie Deegan in the No. 19, who left BMR and Toyota's driver development program to compete in the 20-race ARCA Menards Series with DGR-Crosley as well as join Ford's driver development program. Holley Hollan drove the No. 50 full-time, which was run part-time in 2019. Gracie Trotter drove the No. 99, replacing Brittney Zamora, who started the 2020 season without a ride. On January 16, 2020, Corey Heim was announced as the driver of Venturini Motorsports' new part-time ARCA West Series team. On January 29, 2020, it was announced that Blaine Perkins would be driving full-time for Sunrise Ford Racing in 2020, replacing 2019 rookie of the year and 2nd-place points finisher Jagger Jones as a driver on that team. Perkins was without a ride in any NASCAR or ARCA Series in 2019, and drove full-time for two years (2016 and 2017) in the West Series for Steve Portenga's team before running part-time in the ARCA Menards Series in 2018 for Mason Mitchell's team. Perkins drove the No. 9, replacing Trevor Huddleston, who moved from the No. 9 to the No. 6 which was Jones' car in 2019. On January 31, 2020, it was announced that Lawless Alan, who drove the No. 12 part-time for Bill McAnally Racing the previous year, would run full-time in the same car this season in addition to the other four drivers the team announced two weeks prior. On March 16, 2020, Zamora, who had lost her ride in the McAnally No. 99 to Trotter, tweeted that she would be attempting the race at Irwindale in the No. 42 Ford for Jefferson Racing.
Schedule On January 6, 2020, NASCAR released the schedule for the 2020 season. As part of the unification of the East and West series with the ARCA Menards Series, the schedule decreased from fourteen races in 2019 to eleven races in 2020. The number of races was originally ten, however, an additional race at Utah Motorsports Campus was announced on March 3, 2020.
As part of the unification of the East and West series with the ARCA Menards Series, the West participated in the Sioux Chief Showdown, a ten-race series within the main ARCA series featuring drivers from each of the three branches.
In terms of TV, NBC continued to broadcast the West Series schedule on tape delay as they had in the past.
No. Race title Track Date 1 Star Nursery 150 Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Bullring), Las Vegas, Nevada February 20 2 ENEOS/Sunrise Ford Twin 30 Utah Motorsports Campus, Grantsville, Utah June 27 3 4 ENEOS 125 presented by NAPA Auto Parts Irwindale Speedway, Irwindale, California July 4 5 ENEOS/NAPA Auto Parts 100 Evergreen Speedway, Monroe, Washington August 7 6 ENEOS/NAPA Auto Parts 150 Douglas County Speedway, Roseburg, Oregon August 8 7 ENEOS 150 presented by NAPA Auto Parts Colorado National Speedway, Dacono, Colorado August 22 8 General Tire 150 Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Bullring), Las Vegas, Nevada September 26 9 NAPA 125 presented by CashInTheCan.com All American Speedway, Roseville, California October 23 10 NAPA/ENEOS 125 presented by West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame Kern County Raceway Park, Bakersfield, California October 25 11 Arizona Lottery 100 ISM Raceway, Avondale, Arizona November 7
Schedule changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic It was announced that all ARCA (and NASCAR) races would be postponed through May 3, which affected the race at Irwindale, which would need to be run at another time in the season. That race was previously scheduled for March 28. It would be run on July 4. The races at Douglas County, Utah Motorsports Campus, and Colorado would also end up being postponed from their original dates of May 16, May 23, and June 6, respectively. The Procore 200 at Sonoma Raceway was cancelled and replaced by a second race at Utah Motorsports Campus which was run as a doubleheader with their other race on the schedule, which was postponed from May 23 to June 27. On July 14, 2020, it was announced that the race at Douglas County would be on Saturday, August 8, which was the date of the Evergreen race, which was bumped back one day to Friday, August 7. The two races were ran on back to back days. The tracks are a six-hour drive from each other and teams traveled from Evergreen to Douglas County in the night and morning between the two races. It was also announced that the race at Meridian would not be on August 29 as previously scheduled, and that the race would remain on the schedule but would have a different date later in the year after the month of August. However, the race at Meridian Speedway was later cancelled and replaced with a race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring.
Results and standings Races No. Race Pole Position Most laps led Winning driver No. Winning team 1 Star Nursery 150 Sam Mayer Sam Mayer Sam Mayer Chevrolet 21 GMS Racing 2 ENEOS/Sunrise Ford Twin 30 Blaine Perkins Jesse Love Jesse Love Toyota 19 Bill McAnally Racing 3 ENEOS/Sunrise Ford Twin 30 Blaine Perkins Blaine Perkins Blaine Perkins Ford 9 Sunrise Ford Racing 4 ENEOS 125 presented by NAPA Auto Parts Jesse Love Jesse Love Jesse Love Toyota 19 Bill McAnally Racing 5 ENEOS/NAPA Auto Parts 100 Blaine Perkins Blaine Perkins Blaine Perkins Ford 9 Sunrise Ford Racing 6 ENEOS/NAPA Auto Parts 150 Gio Scelzi Blaine Perkins Blaine Perkins Ford 9 Sunrise Ford Racing 7 ENEOS 150 presented by NAPA Auto Parts Jesse Love Jesse Love Jesse Love Toyota 19 Bill McAnally Racing 8 General Tire 150 Jesse Love Gracie Trotter Gracie Trotter Toyota 99 Bill McAnally Racing 9 NAPA 125 presented by CashInTheCan.com Taylor Gray Taylor Gray Gio Scelzi Toyota 16 Bill McAnally Racing 10 NAPA/ENEOS 125 presented by West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame Jesse Love Taylor Gray Taylor Gray Ford 17 DGR-Crosley 11 Arizona Lottery 100 David Gilliland Ty Gibbs David Gilliland Ford 4 DGR-Crosley
Drivers' championship
Note: The pole-winner also receives one bonus point, similar to the previous ARCA points system used until 2019 and unlike NASCAR.
(key) Bold – Pole position awarded by time. Italics – Pole position set by final practice results or rainout. * – Most laps led. ** – All laps led. Pos Driver LVS MMP MMP IRW EVG DCS CNS LVS AAS KCR PHO Points 1 Jesse Love (R) 2 1* 2 1* 4 3 1* 3 4 8 14 613 2 Blaine Perkins 3 11 1** 4 1** 1* 2 10 5 3 25 588 3 Gracie Trotter (R) 4 7 7 3 5 2 4 1* 10 5 9 582 4 Trevor Huddleston 5 13 5 2 2 5 6 12 3 4 7 572 5 Gio Scelzi (R) 10 3 4 14 3 4 3 2 1 9 27 560 6 Todd Souza 8 6 6 7 7 11 8 5 2 7 17 550 7 Takuma Koga 11 14 14 10 9 8 9 6 9 12 23 509 8 Bobby Hillis Jr. 13 10 13 16 10 10 11 8 13 11 20 499 9 Holley Hollan (R) 12 9 10 11 6 7 7 9 6 15 448 10 Bridget Burgess 17 12 11 9 10 7 11 14 22 383 11 Jack Wood 7 15 8 6 5 8 10 24 319 12 Joey Iest 14 11 13 12 176 13 Taylor Gray 4 11 7* 1* 3 161 14 Kris Wright 2 3 18 159 15 Lawless Alan (R) 6 12 12 9 137 16 Sam Mayer 1* 21 122 17 Devin Dodson 5 16 117 18 David Gilliland 1 98 19 Ty Gibbs 2* 94 20 Todd Gilliland 4 90 21 Drew Dollar 5 89 22 Justin Lofton 6 88 23 Corey Heim 8 86 24 Keith Rocco 10 84 25 Howie DiSavino III 11 83 26 Alex Sedgwick 13 81 27 Chris Hacker 15 79 28 Kyle Keller 4 6 78 29 Mason Diaz 12 2 76 30 Will Rodgers 5 8 75 31 Cody Erickson 19 75 32 Brian Kamisky 8 9 71 33 Zane Smith 26 68 34 Johnny Borneman III 6 38 35 Dustin Ash 8 36 36 Austin Reed 9 35 37 Brittney Zamora 13 31 38 Chris Lowden 15 29 39 Zach Telford 16 28 40 Ryan Repko 16 28Reference:
See also 2020 NASCAR Cup Series 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series 2020 ARCA Menards Series 2020 ARCA Menards Series East 2020 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour 2020 NASCAR Pinty's Series 2020 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series 2020 CARS Tour 2020 eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series 2020 EuroNASCAR Esports Series
References