Los Angeles Native Huddleston Turns Dad's High School Project Into ARCA West Title

By Crystal Clay

AVONDALE, Ariz. (Nov. 1, 2025) — Before Trevor Huddleston lifted the ARCA Menards Series West championship trophy at Phoenix Raceway, the idea for his winning car was drawn nearly four decades earlier in a Los Angeles high-school auto-shop class.

Photo Credit: Yulanda Gilliam/PBY Media

Huddleston, 29, clinched his first ARCA West title Friday night driving the No. 50 Ford for his family-owned High Point Racing team. The championship fulfilled a story that began at University High School in West Los Angeles, where his father, Tim Huddleston, was part of a six-student auto-shop group guided by teacher Glen Werdon.

According to a 1988 Los Angeles Times report, Werdon himself a longtime stock-car racer, taught his students how to rebuild and race a 1971 Chevelle at Saugus Speedway, paying roughly $6,000 in parts out of pocket and turning the project into a full racing effort. One of those students, Tim Huddleston, drew the car’s design on paper and later carried that vision into what became High Point Racing.

“My dad started this as a high-school auto-shop project,” Trevor Huddleston said. “They built a car, pulled a name out of a hat, and my dad got to drive. If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here today.”

The Agoura Hills, California, native began racing Bandoleros at 12 before advancing through sportsman and super-late-model ranks. He won his first Irwindale Speedway late-model championship in 2015 and finished second nationally in NASCAR’s Weekly Series standings in 2017 with 22 wins in 35 starts.

Since joining the ARCA West tour in 2018, Huddleston has collected six series victories and become one of its most consistent veterans. His 2025 season began with a dominant win at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway and ended with a title-clinching run in the Desert Diamond Casino West Valley 100 at Phoenix.

“It’s not like I won this in some random car,” he said. “This is literally a car my dad designed on paper when he was 16. To win the championship in that same lineage, with our family team, it’s beyond special.”

High Point Racing remains a small, tight-knit operation. The team used the same Robert Yates-built engine in all 12 events this season, logging roughly 1,700 miles without a failure.

“My mom and dad are the dynamic duo,” Huddleston said. “They feed off each other, and my mom keeps my dad grounded when he gets a little crazy. She’s been at the track since I was a kid, even when I wasn’t racing, she was still there.”

Huddleston grew up at Irwindale Speedway, which closed earlier this year. He called its loss a blow to Southern California racing but said the region remains resilient.

“I was there when we were tearing the grandstands down,” he said. “That’s where I was raised. But you’ve got to bounce back. Racing out here is still strong — we just have to fight harder for it.”

Huddleston pointed to Harvick’s investment in Kern Raceway and the emerging Cars Tour West as signs of renewed momentum for grassroots racing on the West Coast.

“Kevin Harvick partnering with Kern really sparked the joy for a lot of us,” Huddleston said. “It reminded people on the East Coast that the West still exists. We’re on the rise again.”

The celebration in Phoenix was a family affair, with friends and former classmates from Los Angeles joining the crew.

“We might be drinking Martinelli’s right now,” Huddleston joked, “but when we get home, it’ll be more than that. This is one we’ll celebrate for a long time.”

Editor’s note: Background information about University High School’s 1980s auto-shop class and instructor Glen Werdon was reported by Karl Kahler in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 8, 1988, under the headline “Taking Stock in Their Class: Auto Shop Teacher Revs Up His Students With Track Lessons.”