ARCA Menards rewind: Takeaways from Iowa Speedway and Sonoma Raceway

www.arcaracing.com June 13, 2022

Saturday was a great day for ARCA Menards Series racing. It was not a great day for schedules.

Two ARCA Menards races were slated to run Saturday, first the ARCA Menards Series West race at Sonoma Raceway and later the ARCA Menards Series/ARCA Menards Series East/Sioux Chief Showdown event at Iowa Speedway. The first, the General Tire 200, was forced to end early due to time constraints. The second, the Calypso Lemonade 150, started three hours late because of a weather delay.

Regardless, ARCA got both races in, and the results had a significant impact on all four series.

RACE RECAPS: General Tire 200 | Calypso Lemonade 150

Jake Drew dominated the Sonoma race to record his second consecutive West Series win, both at road courses. NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Brandon Jones also made it back-to-back victories; he won at Iowa a couple weeks after taking the checkered flag in the last ARCA Menards Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Now Drew has an even greater advantage in his quest to win the West Series title a year after losing it to Jesse Love on a tiebreaker. Jones, of course, is not an ARCA Menards Series regular, but Saturday’s results from those who are shook up the standings.

Below are the takeaways from both races.

KBM, JGR Toyotas still the class of the ARCA Menards Series field

Brandon Jones
Brandon Jones (Photo: Matthew Putney/ARCA Racing)

The team that helped Ty Gibbs win last year’s ARCA Menards Series championship with an epic season will not celebrate a driver’s title in 2022, as neither Kyle Busch Motorsports nor Joe Gibbs Racing has a driver running full-time in the series.

That doesn’t mean their Toyotas aren’t still dominating when in the field.

As noted, Jones now has two ARCA Menards Series wins in two starts on board the No. 81 Toyota for JGR. And one of the only drivers who had a chance to steal the win from Jones at Iowa was Sammy Smith, the points leader in the East Series and the driver of the No. 18 Toyota for KBM.

Love, driving for Venturini Motorsports on Saturday, was the only driver not named Jones or Smith who led laps at Iowa. Jones led 31 laps, including the final 19 as he cruised to the victory. Smith led a race-high 64 laps.

With a series-high three wins in 2022, Smith now has a 27-point lead over Taylor Gray in East Series championship points. Not helping Gray’s case in the standings was his 18th-place finish at Iowa with an engine issue.

That’s a notable lead for Smith considering there are only two races left in the East Series standings, one at the Milwaukee Mile in August and the finale at Bristol Motor Speedway in September. Both are combination events with the ARCA Menards Series.

Of course, Bristol is where Smith celebrated his East Series title last season. The winner of that race, naturally, was Gibbs.

Jake Drew establishes himself as driver to beat in West Series

Jake Drew
(Photo: Matt Cohen/ARCA Racing)

Yes, both of Drew’s consecutive road-course victories in West Series competition came with shortened races at Portland International Raceway and Sonoma. Yet had those races reached their full, originally scheduled distances, Drew’s margin of victory might have only been greater.

Drew once again was the class of the field in his No. 6 Ford for Bob Bruncati’s Sunrise Ford Racing team. He led 48 of 56 laps, with only Todd Souza and Landen Lewis briefly taking it from him on restarts.

Drew’s pair of wins, his first in the West Series, have him sitting with a comfortable, 35-point advantage ahead of second-place Souza in the standings. That’s notable considering the West Series is nearing the halfway point of its 11-race season.

Behind Souza in the standings are Tanner Reif, Cole Moore and Austin Herzog, all within a few points of Souza. But none have displayed the consistency that has Drew atop the board.

Drew has a top-five finish in all five West Series races thus far this season, with his worst finish being his fifth-place run in the season opener at Phoenix Raceway. Of course, that event was a combination race with the ARCA Menards Series.

Drew nearly won the West Series title last year despite not winning a race; it was the same consistency that kept him near the top of the standings.

This year, with a couple wins already in hand, Drew might not need to worry about any kind of tiebreaker by the time the series’ return trip to Phoenix for the finale arrives.

Rev Racing jostling continues at top of ARCA Menards Series standings

Neither Rajah Caruth nor Nick Sanchez had the race they had hoped for Saturday night at Iowa. But both can look at the ARCA Menards Series standings as a consolation.

For the second time this season, Caruth and Sanchez are tied atop the championship standings, this time with 279 points apiece after six of 20 races.

Caruth entered Saturday’s Iowa race as the points leader, but tire issues early in the event forced him to go a couple laps down. On his 20th birthday, Caruth ultimately finished 12th.

Sanchez was able to avoid trouble at Iowa, but his No. 2 Chevrolet did not have race-winning speed. He finished seventh.

Rajah Caruth and Nick Sanchez
Rajah Caruth and Nick Sanchez pictured at Iowa Speedway (Photo: Matthew Putney/ARCA Racing)

Caruth is still looking for his first ARCA Menards Series win, while Sanchez has visited Victory Lane twice this season to lead the series.

As of now, Daniel Dye is the only other driver in contention for the ARCA championship; he is 12 points behind Caruth and Sanchez after finishing 17th at Iowa with an engine issue.

The jostling between the Rev Racing drivers atop the standings figures to continue throughout the season, with Dye hoping to insert himself into the battle in time for the season finale at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway in October.

Sioux Chief Showdown points update

Gray’s 18th-place run at Iowa not only hurt his standing in the East Series. It also knocked him out of the lead in the 2022 Sioux Chief Showdown standings.

With 83 points, Smith is the new leader in the Sioux Chief Showdown, a 10-race series within the ARCA Menards Series that brings together the best of the ARCA platform at road courses and short tracks. Connor Mosack is second in Showdown points ahead of Nick Sanchez in third, Rajah Caruth in forth and Gray now in fifth.

Gray won this year’s Showdown opener at Phoenix. Saturday’s Iowa race marked the second race of the Showdown and began a four-race stretch of ARCA Menards Series races doubling as Showdown events.

The next Showdown race is Saturday’s Zinsser SmartCoat 200 at Michigan’s Berlin Raceway.

Notes:

  • Rette Jones Racing driver Amber Balcaen secured her third consecutive top-10 finish in ARCA Menards Series competition Saturday with her 10th-place run at Iowa. The rookie ranks fifth in the championship standings.
  • Connor Mosack’s third-place run at Iowa marked a new career high for him in the ARCA Menards Series, besting his fourth-place finish at Charlotte a couple weeks ago.
  • Making his second appearance driving for Venturini Motorsports, Jonathan Schafer finished fourth at Iowa in his ARCA Menards Series debut. Fifth-place finisher Conner Jones also recorded a career-high in the ARCA Menards Series.
  • Colby Howard, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular who also has experience in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, finished second at Sonoma in his West Series debut. It’s his best result to date on the ARCA Menards platform.
  • Dale Quarterley’s third-place run at Sonoma marked his best West Series finish since his second-place run at California’s Irwindale Speedway in 2004.