Jesse Love
Jesse Love, driver of the No. 16 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota, in action during the General Tire 200 for the ARCA Menards Series West at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California, on June 5, 2021. (Matt Cohen/ARCA Racing)

NOTEBOOK: ARCA Menards Series West title race heats up at Irwindale

www.arcaracing.com July 2, 2021

The ARCA Menards Series West thus far in 2021 has visited Phoenix Raceway and Sonoma Raceway, two unique tracks. Those races were won by non-series regulars, Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe.

Saturday night’s NAPA Auto Parts 150 presented by the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame at California’s Irwindale Speedway (7 p.m. CT / 10 p.m. ET on TrackPass) represents a return to relative normalcy for the West Series.

That starts with the venue. Located about 20 miles East of downtown Los Angeles, Irwindale Speedway is a half-mile paved oval, the kind of short track that makes up the majority of the series’ 2021 schedule. Further, the West Series regulars in Saturday night’s field will not face additional competition from ARCA Menards Series or NASCAR national series drivers like Gibbs and Briscoe.

MORE IRWINDALE:

The first of two West Series races at Irwindale this season, then, will be telling. Only 12 points separate the top seven drivers in the championship standings heading into the third of nine races this year.

West Series veteran Todd Souza leads the standings with a one-point edge over P.J. Pedroncelli. Both are competing in family-owned cars.

The drivers sitting third through seventh — Cole Moore, Dean Thompson, Trevor Huddleston, Jake Drew and Jesse Love, respectively — are running with support from either Bill McAnally Racing or Bob Bruncati’s Sunrise Ford Racing team, two organizational staples in the West Series.

ARCA Menards Series West
Cars line up during practice before the General Tire 150 for the ARCA Menards Series and ARCA Menards Series West at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona, on March 12, 2021. (Adam Glanzman/ARCA Racing)

Huddleston will be among the drivers looking to surge in the standings Saturday night. The Los Angeles-area native is a Late Model champion at Irwindale Speedway, a track owned and operated by his father Tim.

This is a home race not just for Huddleston, but also for his teammates and Bruncati’s entire organization. Thompson and Drew also are from the LA area. Tim Huddleston manages Thompson’s High Point Racing car owned by the Bruncatis.

The Sunrise Ford Racing team’s homecoming last year, though, was spoiled by Love. The BMR driver beat Huddleston at Irwindale on his way to the 2020 West Series championship.

Mechanical issues doomed Love to a 19th-place finish at Sonoma, so the defending champ is looking at the Irwindale race as a chance to get his season back on track. He and Moore, plus part-time BMR driver Amber Balcaen in her first ARCA Menards race, will again be hoping to spoil Sunrise Racing’s home race.

Souza and Pedroncelli, meanwhile, are minding their own business atop the standings and looking to stay there in the wake of Saturday night’s 150-lapper.

West Series debuts

The aforementioned Balcaen, a regular competitor in McAnally’s drivers academy, is not the only Amber making her ARCA Menards racing debut Saturday night at Irwindale.

Amber Slagle, who has ARCA Menards experience as a crew chief but not as a driver, will race the No. 17 MMI Racing Chevrolet for Steve McGowan just two days before her 25th birthday.

Slagle, a regular competitor in various Late Model divisions, is a mechanic for Cook Racing Technologies who has served atop the pit box for Parker Retzlaff in the ARCA Menards Series East. The Sylvan Lake, Michigan, native has never raced at Irwindale.

Balcean is not new to this level of stock car racing, as she ran one East Series race in 2017 (finished 20th at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway). But the 29-year-old Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, native is new to the West Series.

Balcean is a third-generation racer who grew up racing go-karts and sprint cars in North Dakota. In 2016, she became the first Canadian woman to win a race in what is now the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series.

Another driver making his ARCA Menards Series West debut Saturday night at Irwindale is Hiroyuki Ueno, a native of Osaka, Japan.

Return of the autograph session

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shut down racing in 2020, fans will be able to get autographs from ARCA Menards drivers ahead of a race.

The return of the pre-event autograph session comes Saturday night at Irwindale. The session will take place on the track from 6 – 6:30 p.m. PT ahead of the race at 7 p.m. PT.

Saturday night’s NAPA Auto Parts 150 at Irwindale, a track that seats 6,000 people, is sold out.

And more:

  • Johnny Borneman III, who has dabbled in West Series racing on a part-time basis since 2000, will return to race at Irwindale in his own No. 8 BT1 Ford. His lone West Series start last year came at the same track; he finished sixth after starting 14th.
  • Nick Joanides, who has 12 West Series starts dating back to 2004, will make his debut on the ARCA Menards platform Saturday night at Irwindale. He last competed in the West Series when he finished 17th at Irwindale in 2019.
  • Josh Fanopoulos will make his eighth West Series start Saturday night at Irwindale and his first on the ARCA Menards platform. His best West Series finish to date is a sixth-place run at Idaho’s Meridian Speedway in 2019.
Bridget Burgess
Bridget Burgess, driver of the No. 88 HMH Construction Chevrolet, prepares for the General Tire 200 for the ARCA Menards Series West at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California, on June 5, 2021. (Matt Cohen/ARCA Racing)
  • Australia native Bridget Burgess, who enters the Irwindale race eighth in West Series points, is in the field for Saturday’s event as part of her plans to run the full 2021 schedule for her family’s race team.
  • Paul Pedroncelli, the father of P.J., will make his second ARCA Menards Series West start Saturday night at Irwindale. He finished 13th in his series debut at Sonoma last month while his son placed third (his first top-five finish).
  • Saturday night’s NAPA Auto Parts 150 presented by the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame will be the 29th West Series race run at Irwindale. Eleven of those race winners started on the pole.