Ty Gibbs driver of the #18 Monster-Terrible Herbst-ORCA Toyota races during the ARCA Menards Series General Tire 100 at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course in Daytona Beach, Florida on August 14, 2020. (James Gilbert/ARCA Racing)
Ty Gibbs, driver of the #18 Monster-Terrible Herbst-ORCA Toyota, races during the General Tire 100 at the Daytona Road Course for the ARCA Menards Series in Daytona Beach, Florida on August 14, 2020. (James Gilbert/ARCA Racing)

Ty Gibbs Collects Contingency Awards In Daytona Runner-Up Finish

www.arcaracing.com August 18, 2020

With the ARCA Menards Series getting ready to venture out into the great unknown that was the General Tire 100 from Daytona International Speedway’s 3.61-mile road course layout, there was at least one known fact ahead of time: road racing ace Michael Self (No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota) was going to be one of the toughest competitors in the field on Friday. Sure enough, the pre-race predictions held true and Self pulled into victory lane at the end of the evening as ARCA’s first winner on the Daytona road course, but the journey along the way might have been a little more difficult than expected for Self. While Self will get the glory that goes along with yet another win at the World Center of Racing, he’ll have to settle for a split with runner-up Ty Gibbs (No. 18 Monster Energy Toyota) when it comes to ARCA’s battery of special contingency awards.

The starting lineup was once again set according to the rulebook as part of the modified race weekend schedules currently in place for the ARCA Menards Series. Chandler Smith (No. 20 JBL Audio Toyota) started from the General Tire Pole for the fourth time this season as the leader in the Sioux Chief Showdown point standings. Smith leads the ARCA Menards Series in pole starts this season. Trailing just behind Smith’s total of four poles is Michael Self, who has rolled off first three times this year. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Ty Gibbs and Riley Herbst have each started P1 two times this year.

RELATED: Michael Self Completes Historic Sweep at Daytona | ARCA Menards Rewind: What We Learned at Daytona Road Course

Smith, a novice road course racer, dropped back on the opening start and gave way to Ty Gibbs, who led lap one after starting from fifth place. Gibbs led the first fourteen laps of the race, taking the Richmond Water Heaters Halfway Leader honors for the sixth time in twelve 2020 races, and stayed out front for nineteen total laps. The other nine out of 28 laps run were led by Michael Self, who passed Gibbs for the final time with six laps left on his way to the race win. Gibbs was the Valvoline Lap Leader for the evening as a consolation, running his yearly total to 550 laps led, the highest number in the series by a healthy margin. Polesitter Smith did not lead a lap but remains second to Gibbs with 297 laps led this year.

Self’s victory gave No. 25 team crew chief Kevin Reed the Cometic Crew Chief of the Race nod at the Daytona road course. Reed currently is second in the Cometic Crew Chief of the Year standings by a slim margin, trailing No. 18 team crew chief Mark McFarland for the seasonlong award by six points. Self also maintained his status as the top driver in the S&S Volvo Laps Completed standings, bumping his season lap total to 1389 laps completed out of a possible 1391 laps run.

With Gibbs settling for second behind Self, he was named the Bounty Rookie of the Race in just his second road course start in a stock car. Gibbs finished fourth last year at Watkins Glen in what is now known as the ARCA Menards Series East, picking up a top five at the fast-flowing New York road course that was originally slated to be the site of the General Tire 100 before the event had to be realigned to the road course at Daytona. Hailie Deegan (No. 4 Monster Energy Ford) scooted back past Drew Dollar (No. 15 Dollar Concrete Toyota) in the ever-exciting battle for the Bounty Rookie of the Year with a finish of sixth at Daytona. Dollar, running at a road course for the first time, finished one lap down in 12th. Deegan, one of the few drivers in the field that had laps under their belt at the Daytona road course, now leads Dollar by a margin of 435 to 430 in the back-and-forth rookie of the year battle.

One of the drivers in the field who was decidedly not a rookie to making both left and right turns in a stock car was Will Rodgers (#17W MMI Services Chevrolet), a winner four times on road courses between what is now the ARCA Menards Series East and ARCA Menards Series West. Competing for a west coast-based team making just their second start of the year, Rodgers had his work cut out for him at Daytona because of his 19th-place starting spot. Rodgers took the K&N Filters Hard Charger award for the night as he drove all the way up to fifth by the race’s end, a gain of 14 positions in just 28 laps of action.

The General Tire 100 served as an important stop along the schedule of two in-season championships: the CGS Imaging Four Crown and the Sioux Chief Showdown. The Four Crown tests the mettle of AMS drivers at four distinctly different types of racetracks: superspeedways, road courses, dirt tracks, and short tracks. Michigan’s VizCom 200 served as the superspeedway race in the four-race chase, won by Riley Herbst. Self’s win here at the road course portion of the Four Crown schedule gave him the lead with 84 points and a gap of six points back to second place Bret Holmes (No. 23 Holmes II Excavation Ford), the defending winner of the 2019 CGS Imaging Four Crown title.

In the Sioux Chief Showdown standings, Chandler Smith has been dethroned as the point leader for the first time in 2020 after a finish of ninth at Daytona. Smith, a driver without road course experience, spun on multiple occasions but managed to keep his car on the lead lap and in the top ten at the end of the race. Self leads with 238 points, though he did not put much distance between himself and second-place Smith who has 236 points. Sam Mayer (No. 21 Kelly For Kids Foundation Chevrolet), who was relieved by stock-car-driver-turned-sports-car-star Colin Braun at Daytona due to being hampered by a broken wrist, is a single point behind Smith in third with 235 markers. Ty Gibbs also lurks closely behind in fourth with 231 points.

Sioux Chief Showdown Championship Standings

The next race on the ARCA Menards Series calendar is the Dutch Boy 150 from World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. The Dutch Boy 150, race number seven in the Sioux Chief Showdown, will go green at 6:00 Eastern on Saturday, August 29 as part of a busy weekend at Gateway that also features races from the NTT IndyCar Series and the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series. Live television coverage can be found on MAVTV or the NBC Sports Gold TrackPass subscription service.