The Western World Championships presented by San Tan Ford.  It’s a name that oozes with a rich history dating back to Bob Cleberg’s triumph at Manzanita in 1968, and has seen a handful of differing iterations over the past half-century, wing, no-wing, 410s, 360s, sprint cars and midgets at a variety of racetracks in recent years.

The event has found a home over the past five years at Arizona Speedway in San Tan Valley, which will host the 53^rd running on November 13-14 at the 1/3-mile dirt oval, with a practice night leading off the proceedings on November 12 in conjunction with the USAC Western States Midgets as well as the AMSOIL USAC CRA / USAC Southwest Sprint Cars.

Midgets have only made sporadic appearances at the Western World in the past decade with Bryan Clauson (2013), Darren Hagen (2014) and Brady Bacon (2019) the only individuals who can lay claim to the throne as a Western World Midget champion.

This year’s event will more than likely present a new Western World Midget champ with tradition, and a tight USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget championship battle waiting in the wings with point leader Tyler Courtney and Chris Windom separated by only 15 markers at the top.

Defending series champion Courtney (Indianapolis, Ind.) and Clauson-Marshall Racing have won each of their three most recent appearances in USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car competition during Western World at Arizona Speedway, first in 2018, and twice with a two-night sweep in 2019.

In the Midget at Western World in 2019, Courtney was 8^th and 4^th over the two nights with a fast qualifying time added on the final night.  CMR teammate Cole Bodine (Rossville, Ind.) will be making his Western World debut.

Windom (Canton, Ill.), seeking to complete the coveted USAC National Triple Crown after previously capturing Silver Crown (2016) and Sprint (2017) glory, has won more at the Western World than any other driver in the lineup, with a sweep of the 2016 National Sprint features added to a USAC Southwest Sprint prelim victory that same weekend.  He completed the process with a USAC Southwest win on the final night of Western World in 2017.  In the Midget at Arizona Speedway a year ago, Windom finished 7^th on both nights.

Windom’s TBM teammate Andrew Layser returns for a second Western World appearance after an 11^th place finish on the final night in 2019.  Last year’s series Rookie of the Year, along with Windom, compete for the team co-owned by Arizona native Chad Boat, son of a past USAC National Midget winner in the state of Arizona, Billy Boat, who prevailed in a last lap thrash at Phoenix International Raceway in 1996.

Thomas Meseraull (San Jose, Calif.) won in his last time out in USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget competition on Oct. 10 at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Ind., his first career series points-paying victory after 22 seasons of trying.  He’ll be joined by Clinton Boyles (Greenwood, Mo.) in the RMS Racing stable for Western World.

Meseraull is both an Arizona Speedway and Western World feature winner in his career, taking the opening night of USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car action in the 2017 event for car owner Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports.

Reinbold-Underwood will bring three cars to Western World, with a pair of past USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget champions as pilots and a Rookie: Logan Seavey and Spencer Bayston, along with first-time Western World entry, Hayden Reinbold (Gilbert, Ariz.).

Seavey (Sutter, Calif.) was last year’s opening night fast qualifier with the Midgets at Western World, then proceeded to finish 4^th in the opener and 2^nd on the final night.  The Seavey/Reinbold-Underwood combo has won at Arizona Speedway before with the USAC Southwest Sprint Cars in 2019.  Spencer Bayston (Lebanon, Ind.), the 2017 series champion, returns to the series for his first career Western World appearance.

Tanner Thorson (Minden, Nev.) is one of four past USAC National Midget driving champions in this year’s Western World field along with Bayston (2017), Seavey (2018) and Courtney (2019).  Thorson will make his Western World debut as a teammate on Tom Malloy’s team alongside fellow first-time event contestant Chase Johnson (Penngrove, Calif.).

Thorson won the Oct. 9 race at Wayne City, Ill., providing Malloy his first series win as an owner.  Thorson, 78 points out of the lead in third, remains in the title hunt with just Courtney and Windom standing in front of him.

Justin Grant (Ione, Calif.), a 2018 USAC National Sprint Car Western World opening night feature winner, has joined Petry Motorsports for the voyage to the west alongside talented newcomers and series Rookies Emerson Axsom (Franklin, Ind.) and Chase Randall (Waco, Tex.), all of whom will be making first-time Western World Midget appearances.

Eight cars in all will be represented by the Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports team.  Tanner Carrick (Lincoln, Calif.), who previously raced for the team full-time between 2017 and 2019, returns to the squad after competing this whole past year with Petry Motorsports.  Carrick finished 3^rd on night one of the Western World in 2019 to go along with a 10^th on night two.

For both Buddy Kofoid (Penngrove, Calif.) and Daison Pursley (Locust Grove, Okla.), Western World 2019 marked each of their first career USAC National Midget feature starts.  Pursley finished a best of 12^th on the second of the two nights while Kofoid, a Sweet Springs, Mo. winner in Sept., took 22^nd.  They represent the top-two in the series’ Rookie standings with Kofoid 4^th and Pursley 6^th.

Sandwiched between Kofoid and Pursley in the standings is teammate Cannon McIntosh (Bixby, Okla.), also a Sweet Springs, Mo. victor in Sept.  He’s one of five drivers on the team making their Western World debuts along with Bryant Wiedeman (Lubbock, Texas), Kaylee Bryson (Muskogee, Okla.), Brenham Crouch (Colby, Kans.) and Jesse Love (Menlo Park, Calif.).

Carson Macedo (Lemoore, Calif.) and Shane Golobic (Fremont, Calif.) have been winners with the NOS Energy Drink World of Outlaws Sprint Cars in their respective careers, but each have found a fountain of success in their USAC National Midget careers as well.

Macedo, the 2016 USAC National Midget Rookie of the Year, finished 5^th during Western World’s night one midget main in 2019, and recently captured the victory in a USAC Western States Midget feature on Oct. 30 in Hanford, Calif. driving for the Tarltons.

Golobic, making his first Western World visit, won a USAC National Midget race in the 2016 opener indoors at the Southern Illinois Center in Du Quoin and also prevailed as the 2017 Indiana Midget Week champion with car owner Matt Wood.

Reigning USAC Western States Midget champion Robert Dalby (Anaheim, Calif.) and Noah Gass (Mounds, Okla.) are among those expected to return for a second-straight Western World while Rocky Mountain Midget regular Ryan Oerter (Ellicott, Colo.) will make the venture out to the Grand Canyon State for his first Western World, along with Casey Schmitz (Chico, Calif.) and more.

Eighty-one previous USAC National Midget events have been held in Arizona.  In fact, the fourth ever race in series history occurred on March 31, 1956 at South Mountain Speedway in Phoenix, Ariz., a 100-lap feature won by National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Famer Johnnie Tolan, a two-time Rocky Mountain Midget Racing Association champion in 1946-47, AAA Midwest Midget champion in 1950 & 1952, and AAA National Midget champion in 1952.

Logan Seavey holds the Arizona Speedway USAC National Midget one-lap track record of 15.426 sec. while Jesse Colwell maintains the 8-lap record at 2:07.777.  Both records were established on November 15, 2019.

The previous year’s Western World Midget winners include Kevin Thomas Jr. and Brady Bacon, who each raced their way to San Tan Ford / Beaver Stripes victory lane in 2019.

Here's how to watch the 2020 Western World Championships on FloRacing.

The 2020 Western World Championships starts on Nov 13, 2021.

How to Watch:

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Archived Footage

Video footage from the event will be archived and stored in a video library for FloRacing subscribers to watch for the duration of their subscription.

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