TEMPERANCE, Mich. (July 7, 2025) – Former ARCA Menards Series champion Christian Eckes and two-time ARCA Menards Series East titlist William Sawalich lead the entry list for Friday’s ARCA Menards Series West General Tire 200 at Sonoma Raceway. The ARCA Menards Series platform former champions will be joined by a stacked list of drivers that includes road racing ringers from around the world in addition to the drivers competing for the 2025 series championship.
Eckes, the 2019 ARCA Menards Series champion, has joined Kaulig Racing and made the leap into the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2025. Eckes won seven times on a variety of tracks in the ARCA Menards Series, including four on his way to the championship. He scored wins at Salem Speedway, Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, and Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, the dirt miles at the Illinois State Fairgrounds and DuQuoin State Fairgrounds, the mile-and-a-half Kansas Speedway, and the 2.5-mile Pocono Raceway over the course of his ARCA Menards Series career. He has nine career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victories, including four on his way to second in the series championship standings in 2024 driving for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing.
While winless on road courses, Eckes has proven strong on the twisty circuits scoring a then career-best NASCAR XFINITY Series finish of fourth, in his first start at Autodromo Hermanos Rodgriguez in Mexico City.
Eckes will rejoin team owner Bill McAnally for Friday’s romp through California wine country. He is currently 15th in the XFINITY Series standings with three top-five and seven top-ten finishes.
Sawalich, the 2023 and 2024 ARCA Menards Series East champion, has proven to be strong on road courses in his career throughout the ARCA Menards Series platform. With a total of 23 series wins across the platform, Sawalich won in the ARCA Menards Series at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 2022 and matched it with an ARCA Menards Series West victory at Portland International Raceway in 2024.
Sawalich is competing in the NASCAR XFINITY Series full-time for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2024; he’s currently 25th in the series standings with three top-ten finishes including a career-best sixth in Mexico City.
Sprint car ace Corey Day returns to the ARCA Menards Series platform for the first time since a tenth-place finish at Phoenix Raceway in March. The protégé of NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson, Day has had a busy schedule in 2025, making starts in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, Craftsman Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series in addition to chasing the Kubota High Limit Sprint Car Series. In ten High Limit feature appearances, the Hendrick Motorsports development driver scored wins in March at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and in May at Tri City Speedway.
The race at Sonoma will be Day’s first-ever stock car start on a road course.
Twenty-four year-old Kaylee Bryson will make her ARCA Menards Series platform debut at Sonoma Raceway, driving for the team that won the 2023 ARCA Menards Series West owner’s championship led by veteran crew chief Bruce Cook. Bryson won the Trans-Am Series SGT class championship in 2024 with victories at NOLA Motorsports Park, Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, and Virginia International Raceway. In addition to her road course success, she also became the first female driver in USAC history to score a win in the Silver Crown Series with a dominant performance at the Belleville Highbanks in Kansas.
Alon Day, from Ashdod, Israel, will make his second ARCA Menards Series platform start of 2025 with Venturini Motorsports at Sonoma; he finished second two weeks ago in the ARCA Menards Series race at Lime Rock Park in his platform debut. Other notables include NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular Jack Wood in a second Bill McAnally Racing entry, former ARCA Menards Series East road course winners Dale Quarterley and Will Rodgers, who also has a West win at Sonoma in 2018, and Sigma Performance Services teammates Spencer Gallagher and Tyler Reif, who drove to the 2024 ARCA Menards Series West owners championship with Central Coast Racing. SPS won at Sonoma in 2024 with Xfinity Series regular Sam Mayer at the wheel.
The battle for the ARCA Menards Series West championship will resume through the rolling hills of Sonoma County, with Trevor Huddleston leading Tanner Reif by nine points after five of 12 races. Huddleston has a pair of victories at his home track, Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway, while Reif scored his first win of the season at Tucson Speedway in April. Kyle Keller, is third in the standings with a trio or runner-up finishes, and Eric Johnson, Jr. and Robbie Kennealy, Keller’s teammate for owner Jan Qualkenbush, within striking distance of the lead.
The full entry list for the General Tire 200 will be released in the coming days.
The race will be simulcast on FloRacing and NASCAR’s new free streaming platform, The NASCAR Channel on Tubi and Amazon Prime Video starting at 6:30 pm ET / 3:30 pm PT.
For complete event information, including live timing and scoring data for all on-track sessions and live race audio, please visit ARCARacing.com. For up-to-the-minute updates, follow @ARCA_Racing on X (formerly Twitter).
