The ARCA Menards Series – along with the East and the West – will all have race action from Saturday afternoon through the nighttime, making for a jam-packed day of competition.
Stars and contenders are scattered up and down the entry lists for both events, at two tracks that haven’t disappointed much in the past.
ARCA West at Sonoma
The day kicks off with the ARCA Menards Series West, who take to the 11-turn, 1.99-mile road course we call Sonoma Raceway for the fifth race of the season.
Jake Drew – the current points leader – won the pole for the 64-lap race, as he looks to repeat what he did just a week ago when he scored his first West Series win in the rain at Portland International Raceway. Drew started from pole position in this race a year ago but could only salvage a seventh-place finish.
15-year-old Landen Lewis continues to impress, as he will start in second on the front row. Although on such short notice, Lewis hopped in and picked up the speed he had the last time he was in a West race, when the youngster got the victory at California’s Kern County Raceway Park. The No. 17 Cook Racing Technologies entry was initially supposed to be driven by NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Carson Hocevar, but after his crash at Gateway he opted to take extra precaution and skip out on running double-duty.
However, one of the biggest storylines every time ARCA visits Sonoma are the NASCAR drivers that choose to enter. And this year with the Trucks now heading west for the DoorDash 250, we see three drivers who will run double-duty on Saturday.
That field consists of GMS Racing’s Jack Wood, Niece Motorsports’ Dean Thompson and McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Colby Howard. Wood and Thompson are the two who have had experience on Sonoma in the past, both in the ARCA West Series. But as for Howard, this will be his first start of any kind at the venue.
24 cars will battle it out for 64 laps at 2:20p.m. ET, live on FloRacing.
ARCA + ARCA East at Iowa
For the first time in 2022, the main ARCA Menards Series will join together with the ARCA Menards Series East for a Saturday night race on the 0.875-mile paved oval in Iowa.
This won’t be the first time we have seen a combination event at Iowa Speedway, as it happened just a year ago with Ty Gibbs getting the checkered flag.
15 races still remain on the ARCA Menards Series schedule, with Rajah Caruth atop the point standings after his strong effort at Charlotte Motor Speedway a few weeks back. He’ll have to hold off the two competitors behind him to maintain that lead, in what has been a three-horse race for the title so far this year. Caruth’s Rev Racing teammate Nick Sanchez looks to get back to the top of the standings, while GMS Racing’s Daniel Dye looks to do the same after his second place run at Iowa in 2021.
Brandon Jones – in the No. 81 again for Joe Gibbs Racing – will return to ARCA action fresh off his win at Charlotte, looking to go back-to-back for the first time in his career.
As for the East Series, the world will get to see the season-long battle between Sammy Smith and Taylor Gray resume. The two young drivers have gone back and forth in their fight for the series title, with Smith collecting three wins out of the four races so far.
It’s sure to be a fun and tough race all throughout the field, with other entries such as Jesse Love, Leland Honeyman, Connor Mosack, Conner Jones, Toni Breidinger, and Jonathan Shafer, among others.
23 cars will go at it for 150 laps in Newton, Iowa, airing at 9:00p.m. ET on MAVTV and FloRacing.
