ARCA Menards West Series – 2023 Team Chart

By Vincent Delforge, Special to Kickin’ the Tires

Created in 1954, the West Series will begin its 70th season on March 10, 2023 and already the fourth under the aegis of the ARCA. This race that will take place at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, AZ will be combined with the national ARCA Menards Series (Race No. 2).

The 2023 season will have 12 races, one more than last year, spread between March and November when we will return here to Phoenix for the final. This is not the first time the West Series season will have 12 races. It will be the 7th time in history. The first time in 1985 and the last in 2010, the year of the third and last championship won by Eric Holmes.

Since last year and the championship won by Jake Drew for Bob Bruncati’s team, Bruncati Sunrise Ford Racing, there have been many changes. Indeed the off-season has revealed its share of surprises. We are going to present here the main novelties concerning the racing calendar as well as those concerning the teams.

2023 Schedule

As in previous years Phoenix Raceway, AZ and Irwindale Speedway, CA will host the West Series twice. The Portland International Raceway road course in Oregon loses one of its two races. On the other hand, it is the great return of Shasta Speedway at Anderson, CA as well as Madera Speedway in the eponym city in California.

There will therefore only be two road races instead of three in 2022. In addition to the one in Portland, there will be the traditional race in Sonoma, CA.

Evergreen, which last year hosted the 1000th race in history, will improve its own record with a 62nd race, which makes this track the most visited of all time by the West Series.

As far as newcomers to the calendar go, it’s actually a comeback. Indeed the Shasta Speedway has already hosted 14 races in the past between 1967 and 2015 and the Madera Speedway seven races between 1973 and 2009.

 2023 Teams and drivers

The physiognomy of the paddock will change somewhat this year since we will no longer see the blue and orange cars of Bruncati Sunrise Ford Racing. As a reminder ; Bob Bruncati decided to end his adventure in the West Series after 19 seasons at the end of last year. But his cars found refuge with his friend Tim Huddleston of High Point Racing. For the moment only Trevor Huddleston has been confirmed full-time. But the team should enter two cars for the whole season and even a third during a few races.

For the first time since 2014, Bill McAnally Racing will have just one full-time driver with 2022 rookie Tanner Reif. However, the team will indeed have two cars in all the races. The second being shared between Cole Moore and debutant Eric Johnson, Jr.

In total there will be 17 cars announced full time. But for many of them, their wheel will be shared by two or more drivers, such as Nascimento-Joiner Motorsports, Last Chance Racing or Bill McAnally Racing. Among the 12 drivers announced as full-time will be veteran Todd Souza, for whom this will be his last full-time season.

Below is the 2023 team chart. Drivers from the National ARAC Menards Series who will only be present in the combined race on March 10 are not included in this table unless it is already confirmed that they will participate in at least one other West Series race.

We will go into more detail driver by driver in the race preview article of the first race of the season in Phoenix.