After qualifying was rained out this morning, William Sawallich, driving the JGR number 18 Toyota, was awarded the pole to start the 2025 ARCA Menards Series Season. And despite several morning showers, the ARCA crew was able to dry the track and the green flag for the Ride the ‘Dente 200 went off without much of a hitch. Who was able to reign supreme in Daytona? Let’s take a look. Here’s what happened in the 2025 ARCA Series opener at the World Center of Racing.
The first Big One of the afternoon occurred after only four green flag laps. This wreck started deep in the pack amongst a 3-wide mess and collected a few different heavy hitters. The drivers involved include Thad Moffitt, who jumped down to ARCA after a strange and controversial 2024 in the Craftsman Truck Series. He will attempt the full ARCA schedule for Nitro Motorsports in his number 46 Chevy. This is not the start he wanted to the season.
Another multi-car accident occurred when Amber Balcaen got loose, collecting Cleetus McFarland and Kyle Steckly. This triggered another big accident coming out of turn-4 and we weren’t even a quarter of the race through yet.
It was a tough Speedweek down in Daytona for 4-time Indy 500 Champion, Helio Castroneves. On Wednesday, he failed to lock himself into the Daytona 500 on speed. Then, on Thursday he failed to race his way in, meaning that he would have to fall back on the OEP provisional. Now, on Saturday, he was knocked around in the ARCA Menards Series season opener at Daytona. He had acquired several smaller pieces of damage throughout the race but where he got his most significant damage of the race so far in the clip below. That said, the damage was still fairly minor, all things considered, and he was able to continue.
The next caution came just before the halftime break. This one broke out when Lawless Alan got a massive run and aggressively bump drafted the 48 car. This made the 48 tag the 55 from behind and all hell broke loose after that. Collected in this crash was Hendrick Development driver, Corey Day, driving the 77 for Spire Motorsports. Check it out.
In two separate accidents in the same lap, Jake Finch and Tim Richmond spun out coming out of turn-4. Finch suffered the most amount of damage due to the incident while Richmond received only minimal damage. Check out the spin below. By this point, only 13 cars were on the lead lap with over half the field being wiped out in wrecks.
The second half of the race was significantly cleaner that the first half. This was largely due to the fact that 27 out of 40 cars were involved in incidents in the first half of the race. Sure, there were still some ARCA Brakes moments but, all-in-all, it was a relatively clean run to the finish.
As the field took two laps to go, Butterbean Queen took the lead with Helio Castroneves rebounding from his eventful day through to second. Queen won the CARS Tour championship in 2024 and will run the entire ARCA season in 2025. The 28 of Queen led a group of 4 cars which broke away from the rest of the pack until the field took 2 laps to go. Coming to the white flag, William Sawallich made a move with the approaching second pack to race into the 3rd position. He then shuffled Helio Castroneves down to 5th but couldn’t quite catch Queen.
Branden Butterbean Queen won his first ARCA Menards Series race today at Daytona! Congratulations to him! He has a bright future in this sport and will be a threat for the season-long title for sure!
After a crazy beginning and middle, we got to see some clean, hard racing in the closing laps of today’s ARCA Menards Series race at Daytona. What did you think of this race, Daily Downforce readers? Let us know! And be sure to keep it right here at DailyDownforce.com for the continuation of our double header in Daytona with this afternoon’s coverage of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race!
