History was made at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring when Sarah Burgess and Bridget Burgess both started and finished Friday night’s ARCA Menards Series West Star Nursery 150.
The two drivers, who hail from Australia, became the first mother-daughter duo to compete in the same NASCAR or ARCA-sanctioned race, with Bridget (the daughter) finishing 12th and Sarah (the mother) finishing 17th.
This. Moment.@8BridgetBurgess | @SarahBurgess97 pic.twitter.com/Bl9fGIUjxJ
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) October 15, 2022
Sarah, 41, usually plays the role of crew chief for her daughter in ARCA West events where they’ve racked up nine top-10 finishes in the series since 2019. This weekend would be much different, as both of them would step behind the wheel of a race car and compete against each other on the race track.
“We’re a family that never gives up,” Sarah Burgess said in a media availability prior to the event. “If we want to achieve something, we do absolutely everything we can to make that goal happen. It was around February or March that we thought this was a great idea.”
Once they were able to secure two ARCA cars before the start of the season, the work would begin to make this moment happen. And months later it would finally culminate, with both mother and daughter finishing the race.
“I’m so happy for her,” Bridget Burgess said in a post-race interview with FloRacing. “I hope we do it again and I hope the next one is a road course because that’s what I love. But I’m really happy for my mom. I know it’s tough because she has zero experience in like oval racing. So, to be in an ARCA car at the Bullring, I’m impressed. I think I would have struggled because I had experience in asphalt modifieds before ARCA. I give a lot of props to my mom on that.”
Sarah Burgess has some racing experience under her belt, as she has raced drift and off-road cars in the past and she has competed in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series. But Friday night’s task was nothing like she had seen before.
“I am amazed,” Sarah Burgess said post-race. “This has been such an amazing experience and thank you to eBay Motors for supporting this opportunity. For me to actually race my daughter, if it wasn’t for them this wouldn’t have happened. The racing was phenomenal. I had so much fun out there. There was one time, I was actually next to Bridget on the restart and I was like, ‘God, I hope someone got a picture of that because that was really cool. But yeah, thankful for ARCA Menards for putting on the racing we have here at the Las Vegas Bullring. It’s been an amazing experience and the fans have been fantastic.”
So, the question is will Sarah come back to race against her daughter again?
“I think it may happen,” Sarah Burgess stated. “I said I wasn’t going to do it, but yeah, it was fun. So, I think I’ve got the bug again. The bug has bitten.”
Outside of racing, Sarah works a full-time job at eBay in the business and development, parts and accessories department, and Bridget works at a McDonald’s in Utah in addition to her ARCA Menards Series racing activities.
Bridget will continue her racing in ARCA, and who knows, we may see this mother-daughter duo back on the track together again.
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