Bret Holmes, driver of the #23 Holmes II Excavation Chevrolet, and Riley Herbst, driver of the #18 Monster Energy/Terrible Herbst/ORCA Toyota, race during the ARCA Menards Dawn 150 on July 24, 2020 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. (Ed Zurga/ARCA Racing)
Bret Holmes, driver of the #23 Holmes II Excavation Chevrolet, and Riley Herbst, driver of the #18 Monster Energy/Terrible Herbst/ORCA Toyota, race during the ARCA Menards Dawn 150 on July 24, 2020 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. (Ed Zurga/ARCA Racing)

General Tire Superspeedway Challenge Championship To Be Decided At Kansas

www.arcaracing.com October 15, 2020

Breaking a drought dating back three-plus years, Riley Herbst won the VizCom 200 at Michigan International Speedway on Aug. 9 for No. 18 car owner Coy Gibbs in the most recent superspeedway event on the ARCA Menards Series calendar. Herbst led 39 of the 100 laps and pulled away from Bret Holmes late in the going to cement Gibbs’ lead atop the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge standings.

After a layoff of more than two months, the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge will conclude with the ARCA Menards Series 2020 season finale at Kansas Speedway. The Speediatrics 150 is the seventh and final superspeedway race of the season, as well as the second trip to the Kansas Speedway this year.

The battle for the superspeedway crown remains tight as just four points separate No. 18 car owner Coy Gibbs from No. 23 car owner Stacy Holmes¸ while Cathy Venturini’s No. 25 Toyota is a close third, trailing the lead by six points.

PIT BOX: Championship Race Wide-Open At Kansas

The first of the seven superspeedway races in 2020 was the traditional season kickoff event at Daytona, in which Michael Self scored his second Daytona win for Venturini. The series returned from the pandemic break with a reshuffled schedule that began with a race at Talladega, where Drew Dollar triumphed for the first time with a win for No. 15 car owner Bill Venturini.

All eyes were on the next superspeedway race at Pocono, as relaxed age restrictions at the “Tricky Triangle” meant that drivers under the age of 18 could get their first taste of superspeedway action. Sure enough, 17-year old Ty Gibbs stole the show with a dominating win for his father Coy’s No. 18 machine. Similar guidelines in place at Kentucky allowed Ty Gibbs to go back-to-back on the superspeedways following a duel with Holmes and Self.

The first Kansas date saw Holmes finally break through for his maiden ARCA win in July, propelling his father Stacy Holmes to the second spot in the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge standings. No movement occurred at the top of the order when Herbst delivered Coy Gibbs and the No. 18 team their third superspeedway win of the year at Michigan, and this is where the standings have sat frozen since then.

RELATED: Bret Holmes vs. Michael Self for ARCA title

The Bret Holmes Racing team might enter the second Kansas race as the favorites based on the strength of Bret’s win earlier in the year at the 1.5-mile oval, but they will need some outside help to leapfrog the No. 18 bunch for the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge title.

Coy Gibbs will clinch the championship if his son Ty can finish fifth or better in the Speediatrics 150 — or if Gibbs finishes within four spots of Holmes on the track.

Should misfortune fall upon the No. 18 team like it did in the series’ most recent race at Springfield, Holmes will have to finish at least five positions ahead of Gibbs to swing the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge championship in favor of his father Stacy’s No. 23 team.

2020 General Tire Superspeedway Challenge Points — Top 15

Car No. Owner name Daytona Talladega Pocono Kentucky Kansas 1 Michigan Kansas 2 Total
18 Coy Gibbs 37 40 43 43 41 43  – 247
23 Stacy Holmes 35 41 40 42 43 42  – 243
25 Cathy Venturini 43 39 39 41 38 41  – 241
15 Bill Venturini 41 43 38 39 37 40  – 238
20 Billy Venturini 22 42 42 38 42 37  – 223
4 David Gilliland 42 37 37 30 35 38  – 219
12 Michelle Hillenburg 38 34 33 31 40 34  – 210
17 David Gilliland 28 31 29 35 39 39  – 201
46 Bo LeMastus 39 38 24 29 34 35  – 199
69 Bill Kimmel 34 33 34 27 32 31  – 191
10 Andy Hillenburg 23 32 35 36 31 29  – 186
97 Codie Rohrbaugh 12 36 30 34 33 36  – 181
11 Andy Hillenburg 25 26 28 33 30 27  – 169
06 Wayne Peterson 26 27 26 28 29 33  – 169
22 Chad Bryant 24 29 36 37 36  –  – 162

The General Tire Superspeedway Challenge is a special series within the greater ARCA Menards Series overall championship. The challenge is comprised of races on the ARCA Menards Series schedule at paved ovals greater than 1.5 miles in length. Race points only count towards a team’s yearlong tally, with bonus points not counted towards this total.

The General Tire Superspeedway Challenge is contested among car owners, rather than drivers, so that a team using multiple drivers has the same chances of winning as a team with a single full-time driver. Last year saw Chad Bryant’s No. 22 Chad Bryant Racing Ford take the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge crown via this method, with three different drivers making starts in the No. 22 car.