(Pensacola, FL) Five Flags Speedway, the home of the prestigious Snowball Derby for Super Late Models, will once again play host to an early-season event for the ARCA Menards Series East in 2020. The event is slated for Saturday, March 14, and it will be race number two of the reformatted East Series championship schedule following the opener at another Florida venue, New Smyrna Speedway on February 10.
The ARCA Menards Series returned to Five Flags in 2019 after a 26-year absence, with Michael Self taking home his first career series short track checkered flag. In 2020, the ARCA Menards Series was blended with the former NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and West, with ten events on the series schedule designated Showdown races which will bring together teams from all three divisions.
The East and West Series will maintain their own separate stand-alone championships and track promoter Tim Bryant is pleased to be a cornerstone event of the ARCA Menards Series East division.
“We had been talking to ARCA about adding an event to our early season schedule for several years and with the help of Bob Sargent and Track Enterprises we finally were able to put all of the pieces together last year to make it happen,” Bryant said. “When Bob and I started to hear about what 2020 would look like we were intrigued on how it would all come together.
“We have run the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East at Five Flags previously and last year we had the ARCA Menards Series. In 2020 we’re going to have a combination of both. The ARCA Menards Series East is a new name but it comes with a lot of history behind it. It will give our fans another major league event to bookend our racing season. We’ll kick things off with the ARCA Menards Series East in March and put an exclamation point on the season with the Snowball Derby in December.”
Many drivers and teams are already looking forward to the trip to the Florida panhandle, still more than four months away.
“I’m really excited to see Five Flags Speedway on the schedule in 2020. It is an awesome place to have an East Series race,” said DGR-Crosley Racing co-owner David Gilliland. “It’s a worn out track, and a challenging place to race so I think we will see tire wear come into play. It’s going to be an entertaining race and put on a great show. I know that everyone at DGR-Crosley is looking forward to it.”
The 2020 ARCA Menards Series East season opens at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway on Monday, February 10. Other tracks on the schedule include Bristol Motor Speedway, Toledo Speedway in Ohio, Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan, Dover International Speedway, and New Hampshire Motor Speedway. All races will be streamed live on FansChoice.tv and broadcast on a tape-delayed basis on NBCSN. For more information on the event, visit www.5flagsspeedway.com or www.trackenterprises.com.
Reserved advance sale tickets will go on sale on site during the Snowball Derby and will also be available by calling the Five Flags Speedway ARCA Ticket Hotline at 850-941-4343. Tickets will also be available on raceday.