ANDERSON, Calif. — Tyler Reif earned his second career ARCA Menards Series West victory and held off his championship rival Sean Hingorani in Saturday’s Shasta 150 from the Shasta Speedway.
The championship battle is now a virtual dead heat after seven rounds of competition with Tri Cities Raceway in Washington awaiting the series in August.
Reif opened the day with the General Tire Pole Award by grabbing qualifying at 16.033 seconds / 84.201 miles per hour. He then led all 150-laps in a non-stop contest.
“It means the world to me. This team has worked so hard this year,” Reif said. “I think everything went our way tonight and that’s what we’ve been needing.”
Reif and Hingorani shared the front row for the feature on the .375-mile oval at the Shasta District Fairgrounds. Wood drove underneath Hingorani to nab second at the start of the race. Reif leapt ahead to a five-car length lead. Hingorani worked his way to the inside of Wood and used a three-wide maneuver in lapped traffic on lap 11 to take second.
Hingorani ran down Reif by lap 25 while Anderson’s Derek Copeland battled Wood for fourth as well.
A fierce battle for positions seven, eight and nine developed immediately in front of the leaders just shy of halfway. Meanwhile Copeland used a bold outside pass to take fourth from Wood on the backstretch on lap 63.
Reif got clear of the lapped traffic and stretched out his lead over Hingorani. Kyle Keller worked his way to the back bumper of Wood for fifth. The duo went side-by-side on several occasions.
Copeland tracked down Huddleston for third but Huddleston was able to pull ahead for the position.
Reif cruised to a 2.493 advantage over Hingorani over the final 25 laps for the victory. Huddleston finished third followed by Copeland, Keller and Wood settled for sixth.
“I think we were better for a bit there but then we just got too free,” Hingorani said. “Struggled a little bit with drive. These Jerry Pitts Racing guys worked really hard this weekend so I can’t thank them enough for that.”
Arizona’s Nathan Byrd won the 40-lap Speed Tour Super Modified “Tony Fernandez Memorial” over a 15-car turnout from all over the western United States. Byrd led qualifying with a sizzling 13.675 second lap at over 98 miles per hour average. Tim Skoglund and T.J. Sneva then won the heat races.
Sneva led the field to green and the nephew of the Indy 500-winning Tom Sneva paced a tight pack of competitors. After a lap four caution for Kyle Vanderpool of Madera spinning through the infield in turn one, Sneva immediately escaped the action to the pits with an apparent mechanical problem.
That thrust Randy Anderson into the top spot with Bobby Dalton and Byrd all over him. Dalton got sideways on the backstretch to surrender second to Byrd.
Byrd finally completed the pass on Anderson on lap 21 and never surrendered for the win. Anderson, Dalton, Skoglund and Rick Brophy rounded out the top-five finishers.
“It means a lot to me. First of all I gotta thank God for the awesome opportunity to race race cars for a living,” Byrd said. “This car was really fast. It was awesome trying to get around those guys at the start of the race. It was really really fun.
“I was a little concerned at the end if I was potentially running out of fuel. Overall did an awesome job and can’t thank this team enough.”