MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Despite the reboot of the ARCA Menards Series East season this weekend at Toledo Speedway, the coronavirus pandemic has hit Rette Jones Racing particularly hard.
Slated to run Tristan Van Wieringen full-time in ARCA Menards Series East competition, COVID-19 has heavily impacted the luxury of being able to travel freely from Canada to the United States.
With restrictions and protocols in place, Rette Jones Racing has withdrawn from Saturday afternoon’s Herr’s Potato Chips 200 and is reevaluating its program for the remainder of the 2020 season.
“We haven’t missed a race that we planned to attend since the formation of Rette Jones Racing five years ago,” said team co-owner Mark Rette. “It’s very unfortunate that the virus has impacted our team in a different way than most. With our sponsor primarily based in Canada, and Tristan and co-owner Terry (Jones) residing in Canada, the fundamentals aren’t feasible and it we felt like it was best to just restructure our year the best we could and hope to get Tristan back in some races later in the year.
“With that being said, there are still plenty of races left, we have the cars and personnel ready to go should the opportunity arise for another driver to temporarily get in the seat until Tristan can return,” Rette added. “We were looking forward to 2020, but now we’ll just regroup and come back when it’s appropriate.”