ARCA platform well represented among NASCAR national series championship four drivers

The championship four drivers are set for each of the three NASCAR national series, and all three champions are guaranteed to be graduates of the ARCA Menards Series platform.

Ryan Blaney on Sunday punched his ticket to the NASCAR Cup Series championship race at Phoenix Raceway with a win in the cutoff race at Martinsville Speedway. He’ll be joined by other title contenders Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson and William Byron.

When he was 17, Blaney made his ARCA Menards Series debut at Indiana’s Winchester Speedway in 2011. He earned the pole and led 154 of the race’s 200 laps before finishing sixth. He earned a career-best second in his next start, at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, where he also led 67 laps.

In five career ARCA Menards Series appearances, Blaney has four top-five finishes and led laps in four of them. He also has a career-best second in the ARCA Menards Series East twice, at Bristol Motor Speedway and Iowa Speedway in 2012, and a win in the ARCA Menards Series West at Phoenix Raceway in 2011.

Christopher Bell pictured before an East Series race at Iowa Speedway on May 16, 2015. (Photo: Jonathan Moore/Getty Images)

Bell made six starts in the ARCA Menards Series in 2016 and 2017, winning three of them. He won in his debut at Indiana’s Salem Speedway, leading 91 of the race’s 200 laps after starting second. He returned to Salem in the fall, and it was a virtual carbon copy, another win after starting second with 88 laps led.

Bell snuck away with an overtime victory at Chicagoland Speedway in his only 2017 start, leading just the two final laps.

Larson is the 2012 ARCA Menards Series East champion. He won two of his 12 starts that season and finished among the top five in eight of them. He also won in the ARCA Menards Series at Pocono Raceway in 2014, and in his only ARCA Menards Series West start at Phoenix Raceway in 2014.

Kyle Larson pictured with the East Series championship trophy at Rockingham Speedway on Nov. 3, 2012. (Photo: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Byron is the 2015 ARCA Menards Series East champion with four wins in 14 starts.

In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, three of the championship four have considerable experience within the ARCA Menards Series platform, with the fourth having some ARCA laps under his belt, as well. Sam Mayer leads the charge into the finale at Phoenix, with John Hunter Nemechek, Justin Allgaier and Cole Custer also alive in the battle for the championship.

Mayer is a two-time ARCA Menards Series East champion, in 2019 and 2020 with nine wins in 18 starts over those two seasons. Mayer also racked up five ARCA Menards Series wins in 2020 and notched an impressive sweep of both the ARCA Menards Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series wins on the same night at Bristol Motor Speedway that August.

Mayer also has a win in the ARCA Menards Series West, at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2020.

William Byron poses with the East Series championship trophy during the NASCAR Night of Champions at the Charlotte Convention Center on Dec, 12, 2015. (Photo: Jared C. Tilton/NASCAR via Getty Images)

Allgaier won the 2008 ARCA Menards Series championship in dramatic fashion, winning the final three races of the season, including the finale at Toledo Speedway. His run to the championship was assured when contenders Scott Speed and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. crashed early in the race, allowing Allgaier to close the gap.

Custer has 23 ARCA Menards Series East starts with three wins and a best finish of eighth in the series standings in 2013. He won at Pocono Raceway to become, at the time, the youngest superspeedway winner in ARCA Menards Series history at 17. Custer earned his only ARCA Menards Series West victory at Phoenix Raceway in 2014.

Nemechek ran the ARCA Menards Series race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 2022, finishing fourth after starting on the General Tire Pole. He also has a few East Series starts, two in 2013 and one in 2014.

The championship four for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series also includes four drivers with success on the ARCA Menards Series platform. Corey Heim finished second to Ty Gibbs in the battle for the 2021 ARCA Menards Series championship with six wins. A two-time ARCA Menards Series winner at Daytona International Speedway, Heim ended his time in the series with 31 top-five finishes in 43 career starts.

Carson Hocevar started 16 ARCA Menards Series races from 2018-21, with seven top-five finishes and 13 top-10 finishes. Hocevar earned the pole in his second career series start at his home track, Berlin Raceway, and he finished a career-best third after leading 26 of the rain-shortened race’s 101 laps at Salem Speedway in 2019.

Ben Rhodes, the 2021 Truck Series champion, won the ARCA Menards Series East championship in 2014. Rhodes won five of the season’s 16 races and finished among the top five a total of eleven times. He led over a quarter of the laps run that season, 778 of a possible 2989 laps.

Grant Enfinger is the 2015 ARCA Menards Series champion. Enfinger finished second in the series standings in 2014 with six wins, including three in a row to start the season. He matched that feat again in 2015, winning the first three races of the season, but was able to walk away with the title by a dominant 425 points over Austin Wayne Self.

Part of NASCAR’s championship weekend at Phoenix, the ARCA Menards Series West title will be decided Friday, Nov. 3 with a race scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. MT. The race will be streamed live on FloRacing and then rebroadcast on CNBC on Saturday, Nov. 11 at 2 pm ET.