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Last weekend, the ARCA Menards Series took to Talladega Superspeedway, and pole winner Jake Finch took home the win. He led every lap as the race became a literal single-file parade. With dwindling fields, subpar entry lists, and a lack of interest from many of the top teams, we have to ask, is the ARCA Menards Series dying?
The ARCA Menards Series suffers from a lack of star-studded and interesting drivers consistently. While the Dover race is interesting with drivers like Connor Zilisch, Carson Kvapil, Marco Andretti, and William Sawalich, none of these drivers are full-time in the main ARCA Menards Series.
In the past, ARCA had series stalwarts like Frank Kimmell and Andy Hillenburg racing full-time alongside some of the future stars of NASCAR. While not every NASCAR driver competed full-time in ARCA, there were enough intriguing prospects to make it worthwhile. Even in recent years, many ARCA Champions like Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe, and Christian Eckes have gone on to have solid NASCAR careers.
However, in modern ARCA, no such star power exists. Through three races, no driver who competes full-time has won a race this season. Yes, part-time drivers have won all of the first 3 races this season. If the race winners aren’t coming to the track every week, it’s hard to build star power.
To an outsider, the ARCA Menards Series schedule, standings, and format may seem confusing. ARCA is made up of 3 divisions, the main ARCA Menards Series, and two feeder series, ARCA Menards Series East and ARCA Menards Series West.
The three series often overlap through combination events, which, is a cool idea, but, to an outsider, it makes the series confusing to follow. It’s similar to sports car racing without classes. Multiple series on the track at the same time, each with their own different points championship, but, they all run essentially the same cars. It’s impossible to tell ARCA East cars apart from ARCA Menards Series cars.
This creates a lot of the driver turnover we just discussed. With Dover being a combination race, William Sawalich and Connor Zilisch, both top NASCAR prospects, are in the field, but they are only ARCA East drivers.
The main ARCA Menards Series has all races on cable TV, while the ARCA East and West Series have their standalone events on FloRacing. That’s not inherently bad, but, with so much overlap between the three, it becomes difficult to follow who is racing and what they’re racing for.
The biggest issue with the current ARCA Menards Series is a lack of competition. Look no further than the most recent race at Talladega where Jake Finch won uncontested. He also led 63 of 85 laps in the first race of the season at Daytona.
This is the result of some teams investing more in ARCA than others do. Toyota invests a lot in ARCA, and that is evidenced by winning 20 of the 23 races since the start of 2023, with the combination of Jesse Love and William Sawalich winning 15 races. Teams like Joe Gibbs Racing and Venturini Motorsports can invest more in ARCA.
The result is an uncompetitive series where very few teams show up with an honest chance to win. That doesn’t the smaller teams don’t work hard or don’t care, but, they can’t compete at the level some other teams can.
Is all lost for ARCA? We say not so fast, as there is reason to suggest that ARCA can be a better product. Look at the most recent West Series race at Kern County Raceway Park, featuring an incredible battle for the win between Kole Raz and Trevor Huddleston.
Even look back to one year ago, when William Sawalich and Jesse Love had multiple enthralling battles throughout the season. Perhaps the most interesting of which was Sawalich’s win at Berlin.
If ARCA can get more competitive cars, teams, and drivers out there consistently, there’s a great product there. It absolutely has a place in the motorsports landscape.
ARCA strikes an interesting balance between racing on local short tracks while also allowing young drivers to race on superspeedways. No other series has that kind of diversity, and, if ARCA can focus their product a bit better while also keeping that diversity, it could be as good as it ever has.
No, ARCA is not dead. However, some major issues need to be fixed for it to be a more entertaining product on a consistent basis.
