2020 ARCA Menards Series West


The 2020 ARCA Menards Series West was the sixty-seventh season of the ARCA Menards Series West, a regional stock car racing series sanctioned by NASCAR. It began on February 20 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring with the Star Nursery 150, and ended on November 6 at Phoenix Raceway with the Arizona Lottery 100.
2020 marked the first season of this series under the ARCA banner.
When the season was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drivers from all NASCAR series, including a few ARCA Menards series drivers, participated in the inaugural eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series during that time.

Teams and drivers

Changes

Teams

  • On August 14, 2019, longtime West Series team Jefferson Pitts Racing announced that they would be splitting up into two teams, with Jeff Jefferson owning Jefferson Racing and Jerry Pitts owning JP Racing. This continues into 2020, with both teams running part-time schedules.
  • Bill McAnally Racing announced that they would be fielding four full-time teams in 2020, with their No. 50 Toyota, previously a part-time car, running full-time in 2020 along with the Nos. 16, 19, and 99. However, on January 31, 2020, they announced a fifth full-time car, the No. 12, for Lawless Alan, who drove the same car part-time last season. This brings BMR up to five full-time teams for five rookie drivers.
  • Venturini Motorsports will field a West Series team for the first time in 2020, with Corey Heim driving a car for them at Sonoma and the season-finale at Phoenix.

Drivers

Schedule

On January 6, 2020, NASCAR released the schedule for the 2020 season. As part of the unification of the East and West series with the ARCA Menards Series, the schedule decreased from fourteen races in 2019 to eleven races in 2020. The number of races was originally ten, however, an additional race at Utah Motorsports Campus was announced on March 3, 2020.
As part of the unification of the East and West series with the ARCA Menards Series, the West will participate in the Sioux Chief Showdown, a ten-race series within the main ARCA series featuring drivers from each of the three branches.
In terms of TV, NBC will continue to broadcast the West Series schedule on tape delay as they have in the past.
No.Race titleTrackDate
1Star Nursery 150Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Bullring), Las Vegas, NevadaFebruary 20
2ENEOS/Sunrise Ford Twin 30Utah Motorsports Campus, Grantsville, UtahJune 27
3ENEOS/Sunrise Ford Twin 30Utah Motorsports Campus, Grantsville, UtahJune 27
4ENEOS 125 presented by NAPA Auto PartsIrwindale Speedway, Irwindale, CaliforniaJuly 4
5ENEOS/NAPA Auto Parts 100Evergreen Speedway, Monroe, WashingtonAugust 7
6ENEOS/NAPA Auto Parts 150Douglas County Speedway, Roseburg, OregonAugust 8
7ENEOS 150 presented by NAPA Auto PartsColorado National Speedway, Dacono, ColoradoAugust 22
8General Tire 150Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Bullring), Las Vegas, NevadaSeptember 26
9NAPA 125 presented by CashInTheCan.comAll American Speedway, Roseville, CaliforniaOctober 23
10NAPA/ENEOS 125 presented by West Coast Stock Car Hall of FameKern County Raceway Park, Bakersfield, CaliforniaOctober 25
11Arizona Lottery 100Phoenix Raceway, Avondale, ArizonaNovember 7

Schedule changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic

  • It was announced that all ARCA races would be postponed through May 3, which affected the race at Irwindale, which would need to be run at another time in the season. That race was previously scheduled for March 28. It would be run on July 4. The races at Douglas County, Utah Motorsports Campus, and Colorado would also end up being postponed from their original dates of May 16, May 23, and June 6, respectively.
  • The Procore 200 at Sonoma Raceway was cancelled and replaced by a second race at Utah Motorsports Campus which was run as a doubleheader with their other race on the schedule, which was postponed from May 23 to June 27.
  • On July 14, 2020, it was announced that the race at Douglas County would be on Saturday, August 8, which was the date of the Evergreen race, which was bumped back one day to Friday, August 7. The two races will be run on back to back days. The tracks are a six-hour drive from each other and teams will travel from Evergreen to Douglas County in the night and morning between the two races. It was also announced that the race at Meridian would not be on August 29 as previously scheduled, and that the race would remain on the schedule but would have a different date later in the year after the month of August. However, the race at Meridian Speedway was later cancelled and replaced with a race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring.

Results and standings

Drivers' championship

Note: The pole-winner also receives one bonus point, similar to the previous ARCA points system used until 2019 and unlike NASCAR.
Bold – Pole position awarded by time. Italics – Pole position set by final practice results or rainout. * – Most laps led. ** – All laps led.