By Luis Torres, Staff Writer/Photographer
PORTLAND – Thomas Annunziata did everything he could to not only challenge William Sawalich but hang onto the race lead in Friday’s Portland 112 at Portland International Raceway.
However, a bit of bumping and playing defense led to Annunziata not becoming the man celebrating in victory lane as a late race bump coming to three to go dashed his aspirations of delivering a win for Nitro Motorsports in his ARCA Menards Series West debut.
The driver of the No. 70 Bayshore Mortgage Toyota saw it as race pace not being up to par instead of pointing any fingers on Sawalich.
“We just didn’t have enough speed that’s all,” Annunziata told Motorsports Tribune. “We were close to the Joe Gibbs car, but we aren’t quite where we need to be and we’re going to work on it.”
Following the scheduled caution break, the 20-year-old racer knocked on the door of Sawalich, who had led each of the previous 37 laps ran.
Then an opportunity arose in Turn 4 when he battled door-to-door with the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who is running Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
Entering the next turn, Annunziata used the front bumper to move Sawalich into the grass, relegating him to third as Alon Day also went by.
“When I got in front of him, I did everything I could to get in front of him,” said Annunziata. “It was fair game. I got my elbows out.”
NEW LEADER. @tannunziata15 powers to P1 at @portlandraceway!
📺 @FloRacing pic.twitter.com/6wer4IVNfe
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) August 30, 2025
From there, the driver on offense shifted into defense with Annunziata gingerly lost his leading advantage in the closing laps.
As the case in ARCA, lap traffic caused an unfortunate crescendo and a dose of karma.
Heading into Turn 11, David Smith was in the leader’s racing line, allowing Sawalich to catch the leader and from a visual perspective, gave Annunziata the receipt as he went into the grass and ultimately cross the line 8.703 seconds over Sawalich, who scored his second straight West win at Portland.
https://twitter.com/ARCA_Racing/status/1961587763838325070
Among the challenges in the 57-lap race was that all 18 starters had to run the entire race on a single set of General Tires. Therefore, tire conservation was paramount as the leaders pushed their cars to their limit without causing severe tire wear or worse, end up with a flat tire.
“It’s very hard, especially when you’re not the one driving away. He was catching me slowly, so it all depended on me not making a mistake,” Annunziata explained. “We didn’t, but we caught a lapped car (Smith) at the wrong time and (Sawalich) got to me in time and did what he did.”
When the dust settled, there were no hard feelings between Annunziata and Sawalich as the former congratulated him after the win and the hard racing.
“Hard racing at the end. It is what it is,” said Annunziata. “Congrats to the No. 18 team. We’ll get him next time.”
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