Hingorani (3rd) Takes ARCA West Title; Zilisch Leads All But One Lap in Phoenix Win

Connor Zilisch was about as dominant as you can be in Friday afternoon’s ARCA Menards Series West season-finale at Phoenix Raceway. The 18-year-old driver of the No. 28 Pinnacle Racing Group Chevrolet led 99 of 100 laps around the 1-mile oval.

Zilisch, who had five wins in the ARCA Menards Series, and four wins in the ARCA East Series this year, added an ARCA Menards Series West win to the stat line. The dominance kind of took the young racer by surprise as his No. 28 team has left a little to be desired on shorter flat tracks this season.

“This team, we’ve struggled in the past on tracks like this like Milwaukee,” Zilisch explained. “This is a brand new car that we haven’t run this year before. I’m just so proud of all these guys, man. When we struggle at a track, they work so hard to bring a fast car the next time we go to a track. I like it.”

After a late-race caution for a mechanical failure for Marco Andretti’s No. 25 Venturini Motorsports Toyota with five laps remaining, Zilisch pulled away from William Sawalich on the final restart and crossed the finish line first by a margin of 1.308 seconds.

Sawalich, who won the ARCA Menards Series East championship over Zilisch last month, started from the pole but was unable to hold Zilisch off on the initial start of the race. Zilisch led the opening 54 laps of the race before Sawalich was able to gain a lap led on the restart following the mid-race break.

Zilisch would work his way right back around Sawalich, and he wouldn’t look back.

While the battle for the race win was between part-time ARCA West drivers Zilisch and Sawalich, the 2024 series championship was claimed by Sean Hingorani, who captured a third-place finish. For Hingorani, the driver of the No. 15 Venturini Motorsports Toyota on Friday, this is his second consecutive ARCA Menards Series West championship.

The 2024 championship is a special one for Hingorani as he overcame some issues with funding and trying to find rides to complete the season.

“It’s been a long season with a lot of different people who have helped get me to this point,” Hingorani said. “I want to thank Venturini Motorsports for everything they’ve done for me. Jerry Pitts Racing, Sigma Performance Services, just kind of everyone. Two-time Champion. It was harder this year, acclimating every week to a different team.”

Hingorani listed all but one of the teams he drove for this year in the West Series in his thank you speech, instead of thanking Hattori Racing Enterprises, who he drove for in the season-opening event at Phoenix Raceway, Hingorani blasted the team for allegedly causing his season to be derailed.

“We had a couple of things fall apart coming into this year, and it put us in a bad spot. Then we decided to run the HRE car, and then he had ended up taking our sponsor’s money and left us in a bad spot again,” Hingorani revealed. “Lucky to be able to find people that were able to help us out to put us in a position to do this again.”

Gio Ruggiero finished in fourth-position ahead of Brent Crews, who took home a top-five finish in fifth.

Kaden Honeycutt, Jake Finch, Tyler Reif, Kole Raz, and Kyle Keller rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.

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