A season for the ages: How Justin Lofton and Parker Kligerman’s epic 2009 mirrors 2024 for Connor Zilisch and William Sawalich

William Sawalich and Connor Zilisch have been virtually unbeatable on the ARCA platform in 2024.

Of the 18 ARCA races featuring at least one of the two drivers, only three times has someone else won. The first was the ARCA Menards Series East opener at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida, where Gio Ruggiero finished ahead of Sawalich in second and Zilisch fourth. Another was the ARCA Menards Series West race at Sonoma Raceway, where Sam Mayer won while Sawalich finished fourth. Zilisch was not in the field.

The most recent instance took place at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds, where Brent Crews earned his first ARCA Menards Series win of the year while Sawalich finished second. Once again, Zilisch was not in the field.

Sawalich and Zilisch have won an astounding 83.33 percent of the races that at least one of them has started.

This is not the first time two drivers have thoroughly dominated ARCA platform competition; a look at the record book shows it has happened a few times.

One such instance took place in 2009 and featured a season-long battle between Justin Lofton and Parker Kligerman for the ARCA Menards Series championship.

Lofton was new to stock car racing in the mid-2000s. He’d only just begun racing Late Models when he discovered the series now known as the ARCA Menards Series West one evening at California’s Irwindale Speedway.

“I was really a fairly young driver. I didn’t start racing Late Models until I was 19,” Lofton said. “I was really, really green when it came to professional racing, especially circle track racing. It would have been 2005 when I started driving Late Models at Irwindale.

“It was the Fourth of July race at Irwindale, and the West Series cars showed up. I knew about NASCAR, but I had no idea about all the grassroots in between.”

After a little detective work, Lofton and his family acquired a car and entered that year’s West Series season finale at California’s Mesa Marin Raceway. A 16th-place finish followed, and for the next two seasons, Lofton became a regular with the series, earning a sixth-place championship finish in 2007.

Lofton’s next step became obvious. He packed his bags and relocated across the country to North Carolina to pursue a career in the sport. Shortly thereafter, through a connection with crew chief Brad Parrot, Lofton met team owner Eddie Sharp.

The two struck up a close friendship and eventually reached an agreement for Lofton to race for Sharp in the ARCA Menards Series beginning in 2008.

“It was supposed to be part-time in 2008,” Lofton said. “Between what Brad put together for me — he was at Chip Ganassi at the time — and what my parents and what Eddie could do for me, we were able to make it a full-time season.”

Lofton’s first full season in the ARCA Menards Series was good, but not great. He won his first race at Michigan International Speedway but finished the season 12th in the standings. It turned out that was just a taste of what was to come in 2009.

Kligerman took a much different path to the ARCA Menards Series. From Westport, Connecticut, Kligerman began his career in the open wheel ranks against drivers like future Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi before making the transition to stock cars.

He first became connected with team owner Briggs Cunningham, the man for whom he would race in 2009, during his days competing in the United States Auto Club.

“I had gotten affiliated with the Cunninghams in USAC when we did the Cunningham Junior Team in 2008 with the Ilmor motors,” Kligerman explained. “Through that, I actually got to meet Briggs at Kentucky during the 2008 ARCA race. I’ll never forget it, because I handed him my card, and he saw Westport, Connecticut and said, ‘Westport? I’m from Westport!’

“Thus, we became friends and just chatted a lot, and obviously I was driving for his USAC team. The opportunity came about at the end of 08 to do an (ARCA) race at New Jersey Motorsports Park, and then we did a race at Toledo. Both went really well, and that sort of bubbled toward trying to go racing full-time in 2009.”

To explain how good Lofton and Kligerman were during the 2009 ARCA Menards Series season, words don’t do justice. Numbers do a much better job telling the story.

In 21 races that season, Lofton and Kligerman won a combined 15 times for a 71.42 percent winning percentage. Kligerman led the pair with nine victories, and Lofton won six times.

Lofton’s first win came in the fourth race of the season at Talladega Superspeedway, where he led the final 46 laps on his way to a dominant victory. Kligerman, who by then had signed a developmental contract with Team Penske, won his first race a few weeks later at Toledo, the same place where he made his oval debut in ARCA competition less than a year prior.

That win, as it turned out, was pivotal in allowing Kligerman to continue in the ARCA Menards Series that year; he had started the season with only eight races worth of funding.

“Thankfully someone — I think it was Michael Nelson at Penske — said, ‘Why don’t we do the first eight and see how it ends up?’ So that’s what we did, and we ended up winning our sixth race,” Kligerman said. “We were able to continue on through the year and win almost half the races.”

Kligerman seemed to figure something out after his win at Toledo. He won again at Michigan, which he followed with consecutive victories at Mansfield Motorsports Park, Iowa Speedway and Kentucky Speedway.

Not to be outdone, Lofton then won four of the next five races with victories at Berlin Raceway, Pocono Raceway, Chicagoland Speedway and Toledo. Lofton also was the better qualifier of the two, racking up 110 qualifying bonus points throughout the season while Kligerman only earned 50.

“We had a bad Rockingham race,” Lofton said. “We had a bad Michigan race where I was clearly the fastest car, because I think I unlapped myself twice in that race, but that was an electrical kill switch deal. We had points robbed from us after a little carburetor issue at Pocono. What I lost in those races is what ultimately qualifying did for me and kept me in the points races.

“It adds a very interesting twist to it, because I was able to put qualifying laps together.”

Like any good championship battle, Lofton vs. Kligerman in 2009 came down to the finale at North Carolina’s Rockingham Speedway on Oct. 11, 2009.

Lofton entered with a 15-point advantage and added 10 points to his lead by qualifying second. However, an engine change after qualifying meant Lofton would have to start the race from the rear. Kligerman, meanwhile, qualified fourth and just missed out on bonus points.

It was a tale of two races for Kligerman and Lofton that afternoon. Kligerman led early and late, taking the lead for the final time on Lap 137 from Casey Roderick. Lofton spent most of the race trying to work through the 41-car field to get near the front.

Lofton moved into third following a restart with 40 laps to go, a position that would have been good enough to win the championship outright no matter what Kligerman did. But Lofton wasn’t satisfied with third.

Going into Turn 1 on the final lap, Lofton tried to pass Roderick for second. The two made contact, and Lofton got sideways. He somehow got his car pointed in the right direction and crossed the finish line third to win the championship.

“I was greedy. I was in the moment, and I was racing the race and not the championship,” Lofton said. “Looking back on it, it was pretty dumb. I could have just cruised around a lap and did it. You never know; Parker could have gone into Turn 3, blown a tire and gone into the wall, and I would have been sitting there idling around for second and Casey would have won the race.

“At that point I was still racing.”

At the front of the field, Kligerman scored what proved to be a bittersweet victory. He’d done everything he had to do — win the race and lead the most laps — but it wasn’t enough.

“We performed incredible,” Kligerman said. “We knew we had to lead the most laps because that got you five points, and we had to win the race. If I did that and still lost the championship, so be it.

“On that day at Rockingham, I feel like that was one of my best performances ever, and as a team, for sure. We did everything we could possibly do to control (the race) and just didn’t have enough points.”

A lot has changed for Lofton and Kligerman since that day at Rockingham.

Kligerman has gone on to compete in all three of NASCAR’s premier divisions, winning three races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. He currently drives for Big Machine Racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series but recently announced he’ll be stepping away from full-time racing following 2024.

Lofton moved to the Truck Series in 2010 and spent the following three years racing there, eventually winning his only event at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2012. He has since moved back to the West Coast, where he is a familiar face in the off-road racing scene.

Both look back fondly on the 2009 season and racing each other on a weekly basis.

One such moment that stuck out to both came late in the year at Salem, where they had a heated-but-clean battle for the lead late in the race, a battle Lofton ultimately won to earn his sixth and final victory of the year.

“It’s funny, because it’s almost a rivalry that’s just natural,” Kilgerman said. “I remember that season; our teams became friends with each other because we all knew we raced each other each week. Justin and I became friendly because we knew one of us is going to win this thing this week. We kept it really clean, too. We had multiple races where it could have gone the opposite way, and it didn’t.

“Salem in the fall, we raced nose-to-tail for I think the last 20 laps. I wanted to move him out of the way, but it was one of those things where we tried to be super clean with each other the whole time, and we were throughout the whole season.”

Much like Lofton and Kligerman, Zilisch and Sawalich will settle their own championship battle Thursday at Bristol Motor Speedway during the Bush’s Beans 200.

Zilisch leads Sawalich by 16 points in the battle for the ARCA Menards Series East championship, the same title Sawalich won last season.

If there’s one piece of advice Lofton can offer Sawalich and Zilisch, it’s to enjoy the moment and “don’t think it won’t end.”

“When I was young, you don’t think the dream will go away,” Lofton said. “Really, a lot of it is stay focused and don’t take for granted any opportunity.”