Toyota driver Sheldon Creed ended the ARCA Racing Series season in style, capturing his first ARCA championship before winning his fourth race this season at Kansas Speedway on Friday.
NASCAR
Camry drivers Busch and Truex scored top-five finishes at Kansas Speedway in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, advancing to the Round of 8 in the playoffs on Sunday afternoon.
Busch clinched his spot in the third round of the playoffs, finishing runner-up to race winner Chase Elliott. Truex advanced with a fifth-place finish, and fellow Camry driver Erik Jones (fourth) also finished in the top five at Kansas.
“Overall, just proud of the effort,” said Busch. “We haven’t quite run like this here in the last little bit, so it’s nice to be able to come out here with a strong run, especially with kind of what we think we have going on for Texas and Homestead with it being a 1.5-mile.”
The point standings reset in the next round of the playoffs as Busch returns to the top of the leaderboard in first while Truex is currently third in the standings.
In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Toyota drivers Chad Finchum and Josh Bilicki finished in the top 20 at Kansas Speedway. After starting second, championship contender Christopher Bell was involved in an incident on Lap 1, taking Bell out of the race as the Toyota driver finished 37th.
“We’ve done our job winning six races this year, so we’ve accumulated some bonus points, so hopefully that can carry us through this bad stretch here and maybe we can find ourselves in victory lane later on in this round,” said Bell. “If not, hopefully the bonus points will get us there.”
Bell is fourth in the driver point standings with two races remaining in the Xfinity Series Round of 8.
ARCA
Toyota driver Sheldon Creed captured the ARCA Racing Series championship at Kansas Speedway when he made his first lap in practice ahead of the season finale event on Friday. Creed went on to capture his fourth win in 2018, closing out a banner year in his first full-time season.
“I thought we were out of it there and then a couple of other fast cars fell out,” said Creed post-race. “I got a good restart there at the end that kind of gave us control and then the guys tightened up the car there when I got tires there at the end. What a rocket ship that was. That was really fast at the end.”
Earlier this year, Toyota clinched the manufacturer’s championship and finished the season with a combined 18 race wins.
POWRi
Toyota drivers swept all three national midget feature events in Illinois over the weekend. Tyler Thomas opened the weekend with a victory in the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League event at Jacksonville Speedway. A night later, it was Christopher Bell earning his 50th national midget feature win in POWRi competition at Southern Illinois Raceway. Thomas then closed the weekend out by winning for the second time in three days as he captured the USAC ‘Jason Leffler Memorial’ in Wayne City.
Overall, Toyota drivers have registered 37 national midget wins in 2018.
What’s Next
NASCAR races at Martinsville Speedway where the Truck Series returns for playoff action with their Round of 6 opener on Saturday, October 27 at 1 p.m. ET on FS1. The Monster Energy Cup Series race follows on Sunday, October 28 at 2:30 p.m. on NBCSN in the first race of the Round of 8.
Across the country, the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West closes the 2018 season at Kern County Raceway Park on Saturday, October 27 with the race tape-delayed until Thursday, November 1 at 6 p.m. on NBCSN.
NHRA will compete in its penultimate race at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the finals taking place on Sunday, October 28 and the delayed broadcast airing at 7 p.m. ET on FS1.