By Vincent Delforge, Staff Writer
Saturday, September 27, 2025, took place at the 0.333-mile bullring at Madera Speedway, located in Madera, CA, the 10th race of the 2025 ARCA Menards West Series season. The Madera 150 presented by Madera Ford and the West Coast Stock Car Motorsports Hall of Fame was dominated, as last year, by a single man: current championship leader Trevor Huddleston (High Point Racing).
With this third victory of the season, the driver from Agoura Hills, CA, staked his claim by warning his rivals that he won’t let anyone take the 2025 championship from him!
A race contested under the lights in front of an enthusiastic crowd kept on the edge of their seats by the spectacle put on by the West Series drivers. There was no shortage of battles and twists and turns during the 150 laps of the race.
It’s time to take a closer look at the Madera race.
ARCA West Practice/Qualifying
Robbie Kennealy (Jan’s Racing Team), continuing his momentum from Roseville, topped the timesheets during practice. He was ahead of Huddleston and Kyle Keller (Jan’s Racing Team). The latter decided with his team to use his backup car following issues with his primary car on Friday during the optional practice. It’s worth noting that Nascimento-Joiner Motorsports is fielding an additional car, the No. 21, for Monty Tipton. The latter has already competed in two West Series races in 2023, including the one at Madera.
The qualifying session was won by Jaron Giannini (Clark Racing). It was his second career pole and his second consecutive at Madera. He finished ahead of Huddleston by 7 thousandths of a second. It was extremely close, as the top eight drivers were separated by only 96 thousandths of a second! The second row was occupied by Kennealy and Eric Nascimento, Jr. (Nascimento-Joiner Motorsports).
Huddleston got off to a flying start!
The green flag had barely waved when Huddleston took the lead from polesitter Giannini by the outside line. From then on, the driver of the No. 50 car held on to first place despite frequent opposition from several of his rivals in succession.
But the other notable event of the early race was the engine failure at the start of the second lap of Jake Bollman’s No. 19 (Bill McAnally Racing). Under a plume of smoke, he stopped his car on the inside of turn 2. The yellow flag was waved, but the officials had no choice but to red-flag on lap 4. The track had to be cleaned of the fluids deposited by the Chevrolet. After eight minutes, the remaining 15 drivers returned to yellow flag mode.
At the restart on lap nine, Huddleston held off Giannini’s attacks. But Eric Nascimento, Jr. quickly took second place, followed by Robbie Kennealy and Joey Iest (Naake Motorsports). But the second yellow flag was raised just four laps later after Monty Tipton stopped on the backstretch. No free pass, as he himself caused the yellow flag.
Another restart on lap 18 with Huddleston ahead of Nascimento. In the middle of the pack, the battle raged between Andrew Chapman (High Point Racing) and Todd Souza (Central Coast Racing), while Cody Dennison (Strike Mamba Racing) struggled to keep pace.
It was he who caused the third yellow by spinning between turns 3 and 4 on lap 23. Once again, there was no free pass, as once again, it was the potential lucky dog who caused the race to be interrupted.
Another restart on lap 28 with Huddleston leading ahead of Nascimento, Giannini, Keller, and Kennealy for the top five. Behind, Blake Lothian (Strike Mamba Racing) made a good start and took ninth place from Tanner Reif (Central Coast Racing), who was having another difficult race.
Huddleston gradually increased his lead to almost a second and a half ahead of Nascimento. Reif continued to lose positions and was now outside the top ten in eleventh position and the last rider on the lead lap.
RED FLAG !
This long green flag extended almost until the halfway point when, on lap 69, a double incident involved three drivers. First, Dennison spun after contact with Souza in turn 3, spilling a large amount of oil. Almost simultaneously, Nick Joanides (Performance P-1 Motorsports) broke his right rear axle and also lost a lot of oil by spinning between turns 3 and 4. A yellow flag was issued on lap 70, which was converted into a red flag on lap 71. The track was flooded with oil, and it took 29 minutes to clean it with Speedy Dry.
The race returned under the yellow flag for several laps behind the pace car. Thus, the halfway point was reached on lap 75, with the following classification. Trevor Huddleston leads ahead of Jaron Giannini, Eric Nascimento, Jr., Kyle Keller, Robbie Kennealy, Joey Iest, Eric Johnson, Jr. (Jerry Pitts Racing), Blake Lothian, Andrew Chapman, Tanner Reif (-1 lap), Todd Souza (-1 lap), and David Smith (Shockwave Racing) who is the last driver on track, three laps behind the leaders in 12th position.
The restart took place on lap 82 with Huddleston leading. Behind, however, Giannini was passed by Nascimento, Jr. and Kennealy. Johnson, Jr. was very fast and also got the better of Giannini. The latter had a bad time, as he was passed by Keller the following lap.
But the yellow flag was waved again due to debris on the track on lap 91. Tanner Reif, 10th, was given the free pass.
The restart took place on lap 97 with Huddleston, this time choosing the inside line and maintaining the lead ahead of Kennealy. Johnson, Jr. and Keller battled for third place. Kennealy experienced a slight slump and lost his second place to Johnson, Jr. and third position to Keller on lap 100. Behind Chapman’s rise in the standings was notable, as he had now moved up to sixth.
On lap 110, Keller took second place from Johnson, Jr. and began to reduce his deficit to the leader, who was at that point almost a second and a half behind.
Keller puts the pressure on Huddleston!
Kyle Keller is the fastest driver at the end of the race, gaining tenths of a second on Huddleston. By lap 140, he’s only half a second behind and is pushing hard. Behind him, Joey Iest, who had lost ground to seventh, has moved back into the top five.
The final laps are very intense, with Keller repeatedly brushing his front bumper against Huddleston’s rear bumper. But Huddleston keeps his opponent’s momentum in check. He will receive the Reese’s Move of the Race Award for this.
Finally, it’s Trevor Huddleston who manages to cross the finish line first, just 265 thousandths of a second ahead of Keller. The two drivers have opened up a gap of more than nine seconds over their pursuers. Behind Johnson, Jr., Kennealy, Iest and Giannini took the checkered flag, grouped within four tenths of a second! The rest of the top 10 was made up of Chapman, Reif, Lothian and Nascimento, Jr.
“I want to start off by giving kudos to Kyle Keller. They went to their backup car, worked all night long and this morning to get it ready. I knew when he was behind me, he was going to be tough, but I had 100% confidence that it was going to be a good battle. He raced me clean. It’s pretty epic. I’m really thankful.” Huddleston said.
In the championship, Trevor Huddleston now has 517 points, 18 more than Kyle Keller (499) and 38 ahead of Tanner Reif (479). Robbie Kennealy is fourth with 475 points, ahead of Eric Johnson, Jr. (473).
The next race is scheduled for October 10th at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring in Las Vegas, NV, for a new 150-lap event. This will be the penultimate race of the season.
