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Tight Sioux Chief Short Track Challenge Comes Down to Final Race at Lucas Oil Raceway

www.arcaracing.com September 21, 2019

The battle for the overall ARCA Menards Series championship has tightened up dramatically over the past two weeks, and it’s overshadowed another championship battle that has reached the boiling point.

The Sioux Chief Short Track Challenge, the series-within-the-series for tracks one-mile in length and under, will come down to its final race at Lucas Oil Raceway, the Herr’s Potato Chips 200 set for Saturday, October 5.

Michael Self (No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota) currently leads the Sioux Chief Short Track Challenge standings with 2060 points. Self has three SCSTC wins in 2019, at Five Flags Speedway, Salem Speedway and on the Springfield Mile at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. He leads Corey Heim (No. 22 Speedway Children’s Charities Ford) by 85 points. Heim, at seventeen years old, is prohibited by ARCA rules from racing on most of the tracks larger than one mile in length and has focused his attention solely on winning the Short Track Challenge. Heim has seven top-five finishes this season, including two career-best third-place finishes in his last two starts at DuQuoin and Salem.

Bret Holmes (No. 23 Holmes II Excavation Chevrolet) is just five points behind Heim. Just like Heim, Holmes has also scored a career-best third-place finish this season and four total top-five runs at tracks less than a mile in length. Holmes has had a terrific season after a frustrating 2018 that saw him park his family-owned team just past the midway point of the season. He also won the CGS Imaging Four Crown title with a fourth-place finish in the last race of that championship-within-the-championship at Salem.

Holmes is 40 points ahead of Christian Eckes (No. 15 JBL Audio Toyota), a two-time short track winner so far in 2019 and the defending winner at Lucas Oil Raceway. Eckes’ SCSTC wins came early in the season at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville and on Labor Day Weekend on the Magic Mile at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds.

Another teenager, Carson Hocevar (No. 28 GMPartsNow.com/Scott’s Coins/KBR Development Chevrolet) rounds out the top five in the standings, just ten points behind Eckes. Hocevar has eight top ten finishes in 2019, including three among the top five. He also set a career-best with a third-place run at Salem in April.

With an 85 point lead, one might assume that Self would be able to cruise to the Sioux Chief Short Track Challenge title with a top-ten finish at Lucas Oil Raceway. But that assumption would be incorrect.

The Sioux Chief Short Track Challenge counts only a driver’s ten best finishes of the eleven races that are a part of the program. Self has been in all ten previous races, and will likely drop his 15th-place finish at Nashville unless, of course, disaster strikes at Lucas Oil Raceway. Meanwhile, Eckes has only been in nine of the ten races – he missed the April race at Salem due to an overnight illness – meaning he will not have a finish to drop.

The scenarios are various, depending on who finishes where. And although Self officially leads the standings heading into the final race, if Eckes finishes in the top three at Lucas Oil Raceway he will win the Sioux Chief Short Track Challenge championship. If Eckes finishes ahead of Self and Gibbs, he will win the title.

For Self to win the title, the easiest way would be for him to win. If he does, he will score a maximum of 2140 points and then he needs Eckes to finish fourth or worse. If Self doesn’t win, then he needs to beat Eckes by five positions and have Eckes finish worse than sixth and he needs to be within eight positions of Gibbs. If Gibbs wins, Self must finish seventh or better to take the title and still beat Eckes by five positions and hope he finishes outside the top six.

Should there be a tie between Self and Eckes – such as if Self were to win and Eckes finishes fourth – Self would win based on SCSTC wins. In any other tie breaker scenario, Self holds all the tie breakers versus Eckes; he would have more wins, more top fives, and more top tens.

And there are some scenarios, wild as they may be, in which sixth-place Ty Gibbs (No. 18 Monster Energy/ORCA Coolers/Terrible Herbst/Advance Auto Parts Toyota) could come away with the title. Gibbs won the last SCSTC race at Salem and, despite being sixth in the standings, is the only other driver besides Self and Eckes with a mathematical chance to win the title. Gibbs also missed one of the series races – he did not race at DuQuoin – and will not have a finish to drop. Gibbs must finish sixth or better to have a chance at the title. He needs to score 70 more points than Eckes to beat him. If Gibbs wins, he needs both Self to finish eighth or worse and Eckes to finish 13th or worse. If Gibbs doesn’t win but finishes second through sixth, he needs to finish nine positions ahead of Self and 14 positions ahead of Eckes.

ARCA instituted the Sioux Chief Short Track Challenge in 2015 to allow drivers under 18 years of age, who were then prohibited from racing on most tracks larger than one mile in length and thus prevented the opportunity to race for the overall series championship, a chance to still compete for a title. Kyle Weatherman took advantage of that in 2015, racing to the SCSTC title despite missing several early-season superspeedway races before his 18th birthday. Series champions Chase Briscoe, Austin Theriault, and Sheldon Creed have each won the last three SCSTC titles respectively.

The ARCA Menards Series will take two weekends off before returning to action on Saturday October 5 with the Herr’s Potato Chips 200 at Lucas Oil Raceway. Practice starts the day’s activities at 2 pm ET, with General Tire Pole Qualifying at 5 pm ET. The 200-lap main event, scheduled for live broadcast MAVTV, will go green shortly after 8 pm ET. ARCA for Me members can access live timing & scoring, live chat, and live track updates at ARCARacing.com. New users can register for free with a valid email address at ARCARacing.com/login. Discounted adult general admission tickets are available through October 4 at Indianapolis-area Menards locations for just $20. For more information, please visit TrackEnterprises.com.