More than three months have passed since the ARCA Menards Series West last competed on a road course. The right turns are back this weekend at Portland International Raceway.
And as the West Series returns to the 12-turn, 1.967-mile road course in Portland, Oregon, for the first time since 2012, it is not alone.
PORTLAND, Ore. (Sept. 2, 2021) – The championship battles are heating up as the 2021 motorsports season draws closer to its finish. Three races remain for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and four for the ARCA Menards Series West with both featured next weekend at Portland International Raceway (PIR) during the Grand Prix of Portland, Sept. 10-12.
Here’s a good problem to have: With three races remaining in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES’ 2021 season, Chip Ganassi Racing has three viable championship contenders.
Now, how to boost the individual hopes of Alex Palou, Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson while managing the expectations of the organization? Just remember that Chip Ganassi “likes winners.”
This year’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship figures to go through one of the top five drivers in the current point standings. Or, it might go through Team Penske’s Will Power.
Now, don’t misunderstand. Power heads to the final three races of the season in ninth place, 120 points in arrears of the top spot. Barring extreme circumstances, the driver of the No. 12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet will not win his second season title this year. But, oh, he could have a significant impact on how the year plays out.
Something about Bill McAnally Racing drivers and Irwindale Speedway seem to jive well.
For the second time this season and fifth time in his career, defending ARCA Menards Series West champion Jesse Love earned the victory, surviving a flurry of late-race restarts — including a green-white-checkered — to do so.
Josef Newgarden earned his second victory of the season by winning the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline on Saturday night at World Wide Technology Raceway in a race that shuffled the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship deck.
Newgarden drove his No. 2 Sonsio Team Penske Chevrolet to victory by .5397 of a second over Pato O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP. O’Ward didn’t enter Victory Lane, but he also was a big winner of the night by taking the championship lead by 10 points over Alex Palou, who placed 20th after being eliminated in a three-car accident early in the race.
The ARCA Menards platform is set for its busiest weekend of 2021, with three races across two series scheduled over the span of three days.
The ARCA Menards Series will complete a weekend doubleheader starting with Friday evening’s Henry Ford Health System 200 at Michigan International Speedway. The series and its competitors will then travel Saturday ahead of Sunday’s Allen Crowe 100 on the Springfield Mile at the Illinois State Fairgrounds, the first of two dirt-track races on the schedule.
Meanwhile, the ARCA Menards Series West on Saturday will contest its fifth race of the season, the NAPA Auto Parts 150 presented by Sunrise Ford at Irwindale Speedway outside of Los Angeles. The event marks the series’ second race this season at Irwindale, where defending champion Jesse Love won last month.
INDIANAPOLIS (Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021) – Will Power finally got his first victory of the 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season on a track he has mastered like no other.
Power drove the No. 12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet to victory in the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix on Saturday on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, his fifth career win on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile layout that debuted in 2014.
Saturday night delivered the perfect end to a July full of short track racing on the ARCA Menards platform. The fifth and sixth races of the month both produced unforgettable moments.
In the Calypso Lemonade 200 at Indiana’s Winchester Speedway, the 12th race of the 2021 ARCA Menards Series season and Round 6 of the 2021 Sioux Chief Showdown, Ty Gibbs spun championship rival Corey Heim in the closing laps and went on to win the race in overtime.
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