Daytona Day 1 News and Notes

The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards garage area at Daytona International Speedway was bustling with activity on Wednesday as teams unloaded and went through inspection in preparation for this Saturday’s Lucas Oil 200 driven by General Tire.

The 34 cars in the garage went through inspection for nine hours, and those who weren’t able to finish the process still have several hours remaining today before the start of practice at 4 pm ET.

Teams will have two hours of practice this afternoon and another hour of practice on Friday morning, starting at 9:30 am ET, leading into General Tire Pole Qualifying coming up at 3:30 pm ET.

Former ARCA Racing Series national driving champion Bob Keselowski is at the track for an ARCA race for the first time since 2016 at Toledo. Keselowski, the 1989 series champion and a 24-time winner, is the father of 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski and three-time ARCA race winner Brian Keselowski. He’s here working with Bobby and Billy Gerhart, assisting in preparations on the No. 5 Lucas Oil Chevrolet.

Ten-time Cup Series winning crew chief David Ifft is working with Andy Hillenburg’s Fast Track High Performance Racing team and driver Chuck Hiers. Ifft won his first race as crew chief with DiGard Racing and driver Darrell Waltrip in 1976. He also won race with former ARCA champion Benny Parsons and Cale Yarborough.

Long time car owner Wally Finney is also at the speedway, lending his assistance to Bill Kimmel and driver Scott Melton.

The USAC .25 Midget Series kicks off its 2019 season at Daytona International Speedway and had its drivers meeting at 8 am ET this morning. Well over 100 young drivers and their families were inside the drivers meeting room as they prepare to start a full weekend of racing on a specially-built track outside of turns one and two. Former NASCAR officials Danielle Frye and John Darby are heavily involved in operating the .25 Midget series, and current ARCA driver Carson Hocevar started his racing career in quarter midgets when he was just six years old and earned 79 national wins and 15 championships.

Tony Glover is on site this week coordinating inspection efforts with ARCA senior director of competition and operations Grayling Call. Glover is the technical director for the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, and has been a key figure in discussions between NASCAR and ARCA since NASCAR announced its acquisition of ARCA in April of last year.

ARCARacing.com will carry live timing & scoring, live chat, and live track updates throughout all on-track sessions free for ARCA for Me members. New members may register at ARCARacing.com/login.