Taylor Gray, driver of the #17 Ford Performance Ford, leads a pack of cars during the NAPA ENEOS 125 held at Kern County Raceway Park as part of the ARCA Menards Series West on Oct. 25, 2020 in Bakersfield, Calif. (Meg Oliphant/ARCA Racing)
Taylor Gray, driver of the #17 Ford Performance Ford, leads a pack of cars during the NAPA ENEOS 125 held at Kern County Raceway Park as part of the ARCA Menards Series West on Oct. 25, 2020 in Bakersfield, Calif. (Meg Oliphant/ARCA Racing)

ARCA Menards Rewind: What We Learned At All American And Kern

www.arcaracing.com October 28, 2020

There were few reasons to believe Taylor Gray would fail to win Friday night’s NAPA Auto Parts 125 presented by CashInTheCan.com. The 15-year-old rookie had led all but eight laps at All American Speedway in Roseville, California.

Gio Scelzi needed just one reason to believe otherwise, and he found it coming to the white flag in the ninth race of the 2020 ARCA Menards Series West season.

Scelzi, 18, saw his rival bobble through the last corner of the race’s penultimate lap. The driver of the No. 16 NAPA Auto Parts / Curb Records Toyota took advantage.

After losing the lead to Scelzi, Gray could not keep his No. 17 Ford Performance Ford from spinning in Turn 1 on the final lap. He finished seventh as Scelzi coasted to his first ARCA Menards victory.

 

Such an action-packed finish is typical at a third-mile oval like All American. That didn’t make it easier for Gray to accept. The good news for the DGR-Crosley driver is he received a chance at redemption just a couple days later, as Friday night’s race was the first of a weekend doubleheader for the West Series.

Yet Gray insists he was not thinking about Friday’s race when he won Sunday’s NAPA ENEOS 125 presented by the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame at Kern County Raceway Park in Bakersfield, California.

Taylor Gray’s redemption

Though he didn’t lead as many laps Sunday as he did Friday night, Gray had the dominant car again in Bakersfield. He took the top spot from Mason Diaz on Lap 54 and never gave it back, leading a race-high 72 laps en route to his first ARCA Menards victory.

“(A) little redemption from Friday,” Gray wrote on Twitter after the race.

But the end of that message — “On to Phoenix,” the last race of the West season on Saturday, Nov. 7 — better represents Gray’s mindset as a young driver.

“Kind of put Friday behind me,” said Gray of his win at Kern County. “Some people say they live in the past, some people say they live in the future. I’m the one that lives in the future. I don’t live in the past.

“So we just kept on digging and put our heads down and went to work.”

Taylor Gray, driver of the #17 Ford Performance Ford, wins the NAPA 125 held at Kern County Raceway Park as part of the ARCA Menards West Series on Oct. 25, 2020 in Bakersfield, Calif. (Meg Oliphant/ARCA Racing)

Gray’s first win came in just his fourth ARCA Menards Series West start. His age limited the amount of ARCA Menards races he could run in 2020; he also ran 12 ARCA Menards Series races, notching eight top-five finishes and 11 top-10 finishes. And he picked up a pair of top-fives and five top-10s in five ARCA Menards Series East starts.

He knows his career ultimately will be judged by the amount of wins he accumulates, which is why he was relieved to check the first box Sunday.

Yet he also understands the value of simply logging laps at this level of racing.

“You go to the race track, and every time you go to the race track you learn something new. You never stop learning when you go to the race track. Obviously the goal every weekend you go is to win the race. Sometimes that can’t happen, sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you just dominate.

“So you never really stop learning when you’re at the race track. You’re always learning something new and something you can do better.”

For Gray, the West Series doubleheader weekend in California was a good example of that mantra at work.

He made a mistake Friday night, learned from it and moved on. He became an ARCA Menards Series West winner fewer than 48 hours later.

PHOTO GALLERIES:

Championship stage set for Phoenix

Jesse Love entered the doubleheader weekend with a 16-point lead over second-place Blaine Perkins in the ARCA Menards Series West championship standings. Now with one race left in the 2020 season, the Arizona Lottery 100 at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, Nov. 7 (2 p.m. ET on TrackPass), Love’s lead is down to 14 points.

That might appear to be a comfortable advantage for the 15-year-old rookie considering Perkins, 20, was able to gain just two points on Love through two races Friday and Sunday.

Yet Perkins is entering the season finale with a reasonable anything-can-happen attitude.

“Bring them all. Bring all of the cars. We need them all,” said Perkins of what is expected to be a hefty car count at Phoenix.

The field in the season finale will be limited to 26 cars plus provisionals. Simply put: The more cars show up at Phoenix, the better chance Perkins has to erase his championship points deficit should Love experience issues and finish toward the rear.

Love actually gained a point on Perkins with his fourth-place finish (Perkins finished fifth) at All American on Friday. But Love’s eighth-place finish at Kern on Sunday marked the first time in 10 West races he has finished worse than fourth.

Despite Love’s earning the General Tire Pole Award for the Kern race and getting the point that comes with it, the result put him in the negative for the weekend against Perkins, who finished Sunday’s race third.

“I think we’re going to have a really fast piece come Phoenix,” said Perkins. “I’ve got some experience on these bigger tracks. Hopefully we’ll have a very successful weekend.

“You never know. Thirty cars could show up, and anything’s possible.”

RELATED: Updated West Series points standings

The Venturini roller coaster

Venturini Motorsports had an up-and-down trip to California for the weekend doubleheader. Diaz, a full-time ARCA Menards Series East competitor, ran both races in the No. 25 Solid Rock Carrier Toyota. He started second at All American on Friday before a late-race accident left him 12th in the 13-car field.

Diaz rebounded at Kern County, where he started third and led 23 laps before finishing second.

“It’s always good to finish up front,” said Diaz, who now has four top-five finishes in 10 starts across the ARCA Menards, East and West Series in 2020. “We wanted one spot more, and we’re not going to stop until we get there.

“To have a rough season and to turn out like this isn’t always the worst. One more spot would have made it better, but it is what it is. We can’t change it.”

It wasn’t all roses at Kern for Venturini Motorsports, however, as Ryan Repko had suspension failure on his No. 20 Craftsman Toyota and finished last in the 16-car field.

Notes:

– The last three ARCA Menards Series West races — at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway won by Gracie Trotter, at All American Speedway won by Scelzi and at Kern County Raceway Park won by Gray — have produced first-time West Series winners.

– Gray has made 19 starts across the ARCA Menards platform in 2020. After his first career win at Kern, he has a total of 12 top-five finishes and 17 top-20 finishes since he made his debut at Toledo Speedway in June.

– Scelzi’s win Friday night marked the sixth consecutive season the Bill McAnally Racing No. 16 team has visited victory lane. The last time that car went winless was in 2014 with Brandon McReynolds at the wheel. That season, McReynolds finished in the top five in eleven of the series’ 14 races with a pair of runner-up finishes.

– Two drivers, Love and Trotter, have finished in the top 10 in all 10 West races so far in 2020.

– Todd Souza’s second-place finish at All American was his best result since his win at Utah Motorsports Campus in 2008.