The newly branded ARCA Menards Series West will kick off its 67th consecutive season with a Thursday night short track clash at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on February 20. The tight three-eights mile on the grounds of the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway tri-oval pre-dates the superspeedway by two years, with the first West race held there in 1994 won by NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Ron Hornaday, Jr. The series dates back to 1954, when it was known as the Pacific Coast Late Model Division and has most recently been known as the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West.
The 1994 race is one of seven conducted at the Bullring. Ernie Cope, cousin of 1990 Daytona 500 winner Derrike Cope, won in 1995. Mark Reed claimed the win in 2001, with Austin Cameron taking the checkered in 2002. Veteran campaigner Jim Inglebright won in 2003, and Greg Pursley won back-to-back in 2011 and 2012.
The last two years, the half-mile Dirt Track at LVMS has been on the West schedule, with 2018 ARCA Menards Series champion Sheldon Creed taking the win in 2018 and 2020 ARCA Menards Series Bounty Rookie of the Year candidate Hailie Deegan taking her second career West victory in a last-lap duel with third-generation driver Jagger Jones, grandson of former Indy 500 winner Parnelli Jones and son of former IMSA champion P.J. Jones.
The West Series has also run ten races on the superspeedway at LVMS, starting in the track’s opening weekend in 1996 with Ken Schrader collecting the victory. Other winners at LVMS include Gary Smith, NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick, Andy Houston, Jerry Nadeau, Kevin Richards, David Starr, Las Vegas native Brendan Gaughan, and Scott Lynch.
In all, the West has raced 19 times on the LVMS property with seventeen different drivers taking home the trophy. Only Schrader, who won twice on the 1.5-mile tri-oval, and Pursley, who won twice on the three-eighths mile short track, have more than one West win at LVMS.
The ten-race ARCA Menards Series West season will start Thursday night, February 20 as the 150-lap Bullring clash opens a full weekend on stock car racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The action will move to the 1.5-mile tri-oval with NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Trucks on Friday, the NASCAR XFINITY Series on Saturday, and the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday. Ticket information for all events is available at LasVegasMotorSpeedway.com. The ARCA Menards Series West race will be streamed live on TrackPass on NBC Sports Gold, and will be shown on a tape-delayed basis on NBCSN.
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