PIT BOX: Championship Goes On The Road To Daytona

The ARCA Menards Series championship covers a lot of ground. From short tracks to superspeedways, from dirt tracks to asphalt bullrings.

Friday, you can check the box on a road course, too.

The General Tire 100 at the DAYTONA Road Course will run Friday at 5 p.m. ET, kicking off a unique weekend of racing at the “World Center of Racing,” that will include all three NASCAR national series. The ARCA Menards Series race will also be round six of the Sioux Chief Showdown, and will air live on MAVTV and can also be heard on MRN.

General Tire 100 at the DAYTONA Road Course

WHAT TO WATCH FOR:

Michael Self may have an edge on the ARCA Menards Series regulars when it comes to road course expertise, but he’ll have plenty of challengers for the checkered flag.

The 29-year-old Park City, Utah, driver has “road racing instructor” on his resume. Two of his eight West series wins came at Brainerd International Raceway, a 2.5-mile course in Minnesota. When the races at Mid-Ohio and New York’s Watkins Glen International were postponed due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, it looked like Self would not get to put his experience to good use.

Then the Daytona Road Course weekend came about.

Did we mention Self, who has 11 top 10s in 11 races and holds a four-point championship lead over Bret Holmes, won the 2020 Lucas Oil 200 Driven by General Tire on the big track to start the season and will look to complete an unprecedented sweep at Day

It won’t be a walk in the park for Self, though.

Chad Bryant Racing announced Parker Chase, 19, will pilot the team’s No. 22 VerticalBridge/Enertech Resources Ford. The Texas native, who has driven several late model events for the team as a development diver, is coming off his first IMSA podium in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series at Wisconsin’s Road America. Chase also competed on Kyle Busch’s team in the 2020 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona in IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship in the GTD Series.

Max McLaughlin will be in the No. 1 Mohawk Northeast for Hattori Racing. McLaughlin scored an East win in 2019 at Watkins Glen, giving Hattori its second straight win in that event. Will Rodgers, who finished a disappointing fifth and eighth at Utah Motorsports Campus, has four road-course wins to his credit between the East and West series.

Throw in the Sioux Chief Showdown stakes, with Ty Gibbs, Chandler Smith, Drew Dollar and Hailie Deegan fighting for every valuable position and point, and the ARCA Menards Series debut on the DAYTONA Road Course could get pretty wild.

There have been 22 previous road course races in ARCA Menards Series history, held at 10 different venues.

The last road course race held by the ARCA Menards Series was at Road America, in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, in August 2017. The race was won by Austin Theriault, who went from fifth to first after avoiding a pair of last-lap crashes in front of him.

RACING REFERENCE: Previous ARCA Menards races at Daytona | ARCA Menards Drivers at Daytona| 2020 ARCA Menards Series Standings | Sioux Chief Showdown Update & Standings

RACE FACTS

RACE CENTER | ENTRY LIST | RACE EVENT GUIDE

CREW CHIEF HANDOUT: The starting field for the General Tire 100 at the DAYTONA Road Course is limited to 25, including provisional positions. The field will be set by 2020 Sioux Chief Showdown Owners Points (1-25) for the General Tire 100 at the DAYTONA Road Course. The remaining 15 spots will be awarded through the provisional process. This event will be run under the 2020 ARCA Menards Series rules, procedures, regulations and specifications.

QUALIFYING: No qualifying.

RACE PIT STOP: No adding or moving tires to or from pit box once race has started. A maximum four (4) crew members may service car. No tires and fuel may be added outside of the break.

The General Tire 100 at the DAYTONA Road Course will be 28 laps (101.8 miles) and is to be run in two (2) segments. The race will have a break, at or near the conclusion of Lap 15. At the conclusion of the break(s), vehicles will line up in the order they were running at the beginning of the break.

The maximum tire allotment available for this event is as follows: Per ARCA Rulebook, maximum number of tires allowed in pit box for use in race is eight (8). In the event of wet conditions, General Tire SC wet radial tires may be used on all four corners.