The flag fell on the 2019 ARCA Menards Series season Friday night at Kansas Speedway, with Christian Eckes (No. 15 JBL Audio Toyota) taking the race win and series championship all in one fell swoop. The accolades came at the expense of Venturini Motorsports teammate Michael Self (No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota), who came up just 25 points short in the final standings after leading the series points for much of 2019. Self and his No. 25 team claimed several of ARCA’s special awards at the Kansas 150, but it’s little more than a consolation prize for a team that was atop the series for so long this season.
Tanner Gray (No. 54 Valvoline/Durst Toyota) pulled a fast one on the championship contenders and full-time teams by winning the General Tire Pole Award with a qualifying speed of 180.355 miles per hour, narrowly edging Michael Self’s time by less than a tenth of a second. Gray became the eleventh different driver to win a pole this season, and the fifth first-time pole winner of the season. Self led the series in total General Tire Pole wins this season with five, one more than teammate Chandler Smith’s (No. 20 Craftsman Toyota) tally of four.
Gray never led a lap, though, as Michael Self got the jump from the second starting position and paced the field for the first 57 laps of the race. Self picked up the Richmond Water Heaters Halfway Leader award for the fifth time this year, the top mark in the series. Self was the Valvoline Lap Leader for the Kansas 150 by virtue of leading so many laps, ending his season with 537 laps led. Only Chandler Smith led more laps with 666. Self ceded the race lead to Christian Eckes on lap 58 and Eckes led the rest of the way. The 43 laps that Eckes went on to lead gave him a season total of an even 400 laps led, good enough for fourth place in the series. Ty Gibbs (No. 18 Monster Energy Toyota) led 427 laps, the third-highest total on the season. Ty Majeski (No. 22 Crestliner Boats Ford) led 112 laps to round out the top five lap leaders of the 2019 season.
Self wound up finishing exactly where he started – second place – and earned crew chief Shannon Rursch the Cometic Crew Chief of the Race honors. Billy Venturini ends 2019 as the Cometic Crew Chief of the Year with 164 points, having led the No. 20 team to the owners’ championship. No. 15 crew chief Kevin Reed was second with 185 points while Paul Andrews of the No. 22 team took third with 186 points. Rursch was fourth with 205 points and No. 18 crew chief Mark McFarland finished fifth with 218 points.
With Eckes pulling away for the win, he claimed the Bounty Rookie of the Race award as well. He ends the season having scored the most points in the Bounty Rookie Challenge, hitting the maximum number of 450 points. Since Eckes won the overall series championship, he cannot earn the Bounty Rookie of the Year honors in addition to the series title. The Bounty Rookie of the Year award would slide to the driver that is second place in the rookie standings. That driver is Tommy Vigh Jr., (No. 10 Extreme Kleaner Ford) with 378 points accumulated. Behind Vigh is Corey Heim (No. 22 Speedway Children’s Charities Ford) with 356 points and Tim Richmond (No. 06 GreatRailing.com Toyota) with 352 points. The Bounty Rookie of the Year will officially be crowned at the year-end awards banquet in December.
One of the few awards that Venturini Motorsports could not claim would be the prestigious General Tire Superspeedway Challenge. No. 20 car owner Billy Venturini entered Kansas in second place in the superspeedway standings and a longshot to catch the leading team of Chad Bryant’s No. 22 car. Harrison Burton (No. 20 Ruud Toyota), a winner at Daytona earlier this season, was behind the wheel of the No. 20 car at Kansas but hit the wall early on and finished in 12th place. Bryant tabbed Ty Majeski to wheel the No. 22 Ford and Majeski delivered a third-place finish for Bryant, clinching the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge in the process. Bryant finished with 2800 points while Venturini took second place with 2640 points. Bill Venturini’s No. 15 Toyota completed the podium with 2520 points. Bryant’s No. 22 team locked up the R.E. Lightning Challenge title as well, finishing the season with 4130 points in that award’s standings.
Bret Holmes (No. 23 Holmes II Excavation Chevrolet) ended the best season of his ARCA career by sewing up another award thanks to his fourth-place finish at Kansas. Holmes topped the S&S Volvo Laps Completed standings by completing 2644 of a possible 2653 laps in the 2019 season. Holmes was running at the finish of every race this season, propelling him to win the award. Travis Braden (No. 27 MatrixCare/Consonus Ford) was second with 2556 laps completed and Joe Graf Jr. (No. 77 Eat Sleep Race Chevrolet) finished third with 2501 laps completed.
These awards will be handed out to drivers and teams at the year-end awards banquet on Saturday, December 14 in Indianapolis during the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show weekend. Tickets to the banquet will be available to the general public when they go on sale in early November.
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