In the first ARCA Menards Series race at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway in 2024, Trevor Huddleston lost in a photo finish. One year later, in the same event, Huddleston held off a hard-charging Kyle Keller en route to the win.
Huddleston took the lead early in the West season opener and set sail from there. Yet as the laps wound down, Keller reeled him in. On the final lap, the two raced hard, but Keller slid his No. 71 Ford coming out of turn 4 and Huddleston came away victorious.
🏁 @TrevorHudd50 wins at @KernRaceway! pic.twitter.com/0nXsgMg8Gf
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) January 26, 2025
“Thank you so much,” Huddleston said in victory lane. “Thank you to all the fans for coming out. This is what we wanted: this nice beautiful weather. I know it didn’t start that way. But thank you guys, we do this for you so we’re going to have a lot of racing out here this year and going to do a lot of exciting things.
“Definitely just want to say hats off to Kyle Keller over here. I mean that’s how you race a race. He ran it perfect and he didn’t use me up at all. He was going for that win and he just got unlucky that car was there. I saw that in my windshield and I knew I had to do what I had to do. He did a great job.”
After running the final two races of the 2024 season with Jan’s Racing Team, Keller joined the team for a full-time campaign this year. In the season opener, he delivered a career-best second-place finish
“Oh yeah, definitely, it was wreck Trevor or race him clean,” he told FloRacing post-race. “We could’ve had a good photo finish there and then I got behind the lap car and I’m like, ‘Man, I probably just got to take a right here.’ So I took a right and tried to put it in the middle but it was either I stuff him in the fence or we just try to dog it to the end. I decided to dog it to the end. So I’m never going to race Trevor dirty. We’ve always raced clean and I’m glad that you guys got the win and we’re going to race good all year against each other.
“We’re going to get Jan [Qualkenbush, Keller’s team owner] his first win, like you said, and hopefully it comes at Phoenix [Raceway]. If not, we got 10 more after that.”
In his first race driving for Central Coast Racing, succeeding his younger brother Tyler Reif, Tanner Reif finished in third. Robbie Kennealy and Eric Johnson Jr. completed the top five in fourth and fifth.
After winning the pole, Daniel Hemric spent much of the race at the tail end of the lead lap.
When the lone caution flag flew for an issue on Spencer Davis’ No. 42 Chevrolet, Hemric charged toward the front. He ran as high as third, chasing the top two, but an issue on his No. 19 Chevrolet relegated him to a ninth-place finish.
After the first 150 laps of the West season, Huddleston obviously has the lone win. It’s also his first triumph at Kern and sixth of his career.
ARCA West Results from Kern Raceway
The West field next joins the ARCA Menards Series for a combination race at Phoenix Raceway. That race will take place on Friday, March 7 at 8 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1.
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.