Todd Souza is retiring from full-time driving in the ARCA Menards Series West, he confirmed to Frontstretch.
”I already said when the season started that this was going to be my last full season,” he said.
The news came on the heels of Souza announcing his team Central Coast Cabinets Racing would field Tyler Reif in the No. 13 at Shasta Speedway. Reif won the 2023 West season opener and is fourth in the standings. Souza is hopeful Reif will join his team for the rest of the 2023 season and beyond.
“This kind of rolls right into our program,” Souza added. “It seems like it’ll be a good fit.”
Souza is currently seventh in the West standings with one top five and three top 10s. He will contest Shasta in the No. 3, but what car number he drives in the remaining races will be determined once Reif decides whether he will join the team for the rest of the 2023 season.
Regardless of whether Reif is with the team in 2024 or not, Souza will still field a West team.
“Yeah, I’m retiring from our full-time program but depending on how things go, whoever’s in our seat and stuff, I’ll probably run a couple of select races throughout the year,” he continued. “I want to keep things rolling on my end. You know, it’s hard to just up and quit after 40 years of racing so I’m sure I’m going to have some withdrawals there. One that I’ll be shooting for is Sonoma [Raceway] for sure. It’s in my backyard. Of all the races, it’s the one I look forward to the most other than Phoenix [Raceway].”
The team right now has both Toyota and Ford racecars. Although more than half of the team’s fleet is Ford, the team intends to run all Toyotas in 2024. Additionally, Souza wants to gain TRD support.
“That’s what we’re working on; we don’t have anything locked in for right now but that is the program we’re working on and have some things in the works,” he said. “It’s promising but we don’t have anything on paper right now.”
Venturini Motorsports currently is the only TRD-backed full-time ARCA team.
Souza has run 114 West races in his career. He has one victory, in 2008 at Utah Motorsports Campus. In addition to his one win, Souza has 20 top fives, 64 top 10s and a career-best points finish of fourth in 2022.
About the author
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.
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