Ty Gibbs, Nick Sanchez split special awards in championship race at Kansas

www.arcaracing.com October 27, 2021

Saturday at Kansas Speedway was supposed to be all about Ty Gibbs, who was on the verge of clinching the 2021 ARCA Menards Series championship by merely taking the green flag for the Reeseā€™s 150. Gibbs even spoiled the early show for the NASCAR Xfinity Series playoff drivers by winning the Kansas Lottery 300, marking his fourth series victory in 17 starts.

With the laps winding down in the Reese’s 150, Gibbs was headed for a clean sweep, having led every lap from the pole until an untimely caution flew to set up a green-white-checkered overtime finish. In the end, Gibbs won everything there was to win on Saturday except the Reeseā€™s 150 thanks to the last-minute heroics of first-time ARCA Menards Series winner Nick Sanchez.

RELATED: What we learned at Kansas Speedway

Ty Gibbs
Ty Gibbs qualifies for the Reese’s 150 at Kansas Speedway on Oct. 23, 2021. (Cassie Florido/ARCA Racing)

For the 15th time in the 2021 AMS season, Gibbs led the field to the green flag after topping the General Tire Pole Qualifying charts with a lap of 30.575 seconds/176.615 mph. Gibbs also sat on the pole for the spring race at Kansas. Incredibly, his pole-winning time Saturday was just 0.002 seconds slower than his pole-winning time back in May.

Only four other drivers were able to out-qualify Gibbs during the season: Main championship adversary Corey Heim did so three times; Drew Dollar, Daniel Dye and Landen Lewis each did so one time.

Once the green flag dropped, the rout appeared to be on, as Gibbs opened up a huge lead over the rest of the pack. With weather looming, the race very well could have been a sprint to the halfway mark, and Gibbs left little doubt that he would have been the runaway winner in that scenario. Gibbs was the Richmond Water Heaters Halfway Leader for the 12th time this season, and he lapped the entire field, save for Heim and Sanchez, in the first half of the race.

Gibbs was in full command of the race when Eric Caudell cut a tire with six laps to go, narrowly avoiding Gibbs and nearly collecting Kyle Sieg in the process. With a two-lap shootout imminent, the field was able to bunch back up, and Heim lined up alongside Gibbs for the restart.

Heim got a strong jump and edged ahead of Gibbs at the line, the first official lead change of the evening after Gibbs led the first 99 laps of the race as the Valvoline Lap Leader. Heimā€™s time out front was short-lived, though, because Sanchez made a daring, three-wide pass heading into Turn 1 to charge to the race lead after restarting third.

The bold maneuver was voted by the fans as the Reese’s Sweet Move of the Race. Sanchez staved off a frantic charge from Gibbs to lead the final two laps and score his first career AMS victory.

The yearlong battle in the Valvoline Lap Leader standings was decided long before the series rolled into the garage at Kansas. Gibbs ran his season total up to 1,689 laps led, further cementing his modern-day series record for laps led in a single season. Series legend Tim Steele held the previous modern record with 1,514 laps led in his 1996 championship season. However, Steele accomplished that feat when the schedule was 25 races long. Gibbs did it in a shorter, 20-race calendar, leading in 17 of the 20 events.

Heim slotted in second place with 406 laps led on the year across 12 races, including six victories. This includes the only last-lap pass for the win of the AMS season, when Heim motored past local favorite Bret Holmes in a one-lap dash to win at Talladega Superspeedway.

Daniel Dye ended the year in third with 198 laps led, while Landen Lewis was fourth with 104 laps led. All of the laps led by those drivers came in their wins at Berlin and DuQuoin, respectively. Drew Dollar completed the top five with 51 laps led.

For Sanchez, the two laps he led represented the first time he was in front of the field in an ARCA Menards Series race. The win earned him the Bounty Rookie of the Race honors.

Ty Gibbs
Ty Gibbs celebrates winning the Bounty Rookie Challenge title after the Reese’s 150 at Kansas Speedway on Oct. 23, 2021. (Cassie Florido/ARCA Racing)

In the hunt for the Bounty Rookie of the Year, Gibbs and Heim entered Kansas locked in a tight battle for the award. While the overall championship fight between the duo ended as soon as Gibbsā€™ No. 18 Toyota fired up on the grid, Gibbs only led Heim by one point in the rookie standings. The margin ultimately reached two points when Gibbs crossed the line in second while Heim trailed in third, handing Gibbs the Bounty Rookie of the Year crown by a score of 820-818 points. It marks the second time a Joe Gibbs Racing driver ended the season as the top rookie, with Riley Herbst being the first in 2017.

His driver may have lost the race late, but Mark McFarland still took Cometic Crew Chief of the Race laurels for leading Gibbs to a second-place result from the pole. McFarland ended the season atop the Cometic Crew Chief of the Year standings, defeating runner-up Shannon Rursch in the process. Rursch, who calls the shots for Venturini Motorsportsā€™ No. 20 Toyota driven by Heim, finished 31 points back of McFarland in the final standings.

Heimā€™s No. 20 group didnā€™t go home empty-handed, though. His third-place finish in the season finale was more than enough to clinch the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge title for No. 20 car owner Billy Venturini.

A winner at Daytona, Talladega and Pocono, Heim never finished worse than third at the seven largest ovals the series visits, and he racked up 295 challenge points for the team. Venturini Motorsports took the top two spots in the superspeedway standings with team patriarch Bill Venturiniā€™s No. 15 car coming in second, 23 points out of first. Billy Venturini won his second individual superspeedway title and the fifth for the Venturini Motorsports team as a whole, tying Larry Clementā€™s Tri-State Motorsports team for the most all-time by a single organization.

Heim also took an individual award by ending the season ahead in the S&S Volvo Laps Completed standings. For much of the year, Heim looked like a serious candidate to join 2012 series champ Chris Buescher as the only drivers to complete every single lap in a given season. However, an adventurous night on the dirt at DuQuoin ended with Heim pulling into the pits nine laps early, registering his first (and only) DNF of the year in race No. 17. Heim finished a lap down in the seasonā€™s penultimate event at Salem, giving him a final tally of 2,622 laps completed out of a possible 2,632.

Finally, the big win for Sanchez closed out the teamā€™s R.E. Lightning Challenge award-winning campaign on a high note. Rev Racingā€™s No. 2 car owner Max Siegel easily led the Lightning Challenge standings that count race points only from participating teams that use Racing Electronics products and run the R.E. decal each week. Siegel is credited with two race victories in 2021, previously winning at DuQuoin when Rev partnered with Rette-Jones Racing to field Lewis in the No. 2 car.

Further information about award distribution and postseason festivities will be announced at a later date.

The 2021 ARCA Menards Series and ARCA Menards Series East seasons have concluded, but the ARCA Menards Series West has one race yet to be run. Seven drivers are mathematically eligible to take home the championship after the Arizona Lottery 100 at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, Nov. 6.

TrackPass on NBC Sports Gold will have a live stream of the race beginning at 3 p.m. ET, while radio coverage will be provided by MRN and carried on SiriusXM. Live timing and scoring for all on-track activities can be found at ARCARacing.com on the Race Center page.