A few of NASCAR’s brightest young prospects will enter The Last Great Colosseum of Bristol Motor Speedway on Thursday.
Only one will leave as ARCA Menards Series East champion.
Tristan McKee and Max Reaves are separated by a single point atop the East Series standings entering the Bush’s Best 200 (5:30 p.m. ET on FS1) and have been practically inseparable on the track all year. The pair has combined to win six of the seven East Series events so far this season, with Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park being the only exception to that shared dominance. Additionally, defending series champion Isaac Kitzmiller is just 17 points off the lead, waiting for an opportunity to pounce should McKee and Reaves falter.
McKee holds the slight advantage over Reaves, but Bristol presents plenty of challenges that could end his championship pursuit in an instant. Even with so much on the line Thursday, McKee is approaching Bristol with the mindset as any other race: Just go out and win.
“I have a race under my belt [at Bristol], which is good,” McKee said. “I feel like I’ll get up to speed there pretty quickly and be able to dial in the car instead of working on getting used to the track. I know Max [Reaves] hasn’t been to Bristol, but we’re kind of doing our own deal to get our car really good for the race.”
RELATED: East Series championship scenarios
Despite turning just 16 in August, McKee has raced a stock car of some form for nearly five years. In 2022, he quailed for marquee Late Model Stock events like the South Carolina 400 at Florence Motor Speedway, which featured a talented field that included NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr.
By the time 2025 came around, McKee had put together an impressive list of accomplishments, including the famous elevator ride to North Wilkesboro Speedway’s Victory Lane. McKee’s next step became the ARCA Menards Series platform, though his first race featured both left turns and right turns.
Debuting at a historic road course like Watkins Glen International would intimidate any driver, but McKee met the moment and more. He capitalized on Brent Crews’ late mechanical failure to join a small-but-elite list of drivers to win in their first ARCA Menards Series start.
That triumph set the tone for what McKee has accomplished in 2026. Aside from his four East Series victories, he also grabbed a standalone national ARCA Menards Series checkered flag at Madison International Speedway.
Even with all the success he’s enjoyed in the ARCA Menards Series, McKee admitted he needed to adopt a different line of thinking with the cars. There are plenty of differences between the ARCA Menards Series and Late Model Stocks, but McKee feels every race on the former platform requires him to be alert.
“It’s been different with the heavier cars,” McKee said. “I hadn’t really driven anything like those. They kind of roll a lot. Another big thing is the tires that we run. There’s not a lot of saving in ARCA; you’re pretty much going full out most of the race. It was definitely a little bit of a learning curve.”
Through nearly every step of McKee’s journey, Reaves has been a constant presence. The two first shared the track together during the Summer Shootout at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the late 2010s and embarked on similar paths to the ARCA Menards Series, with Reaves debuting in the 2025 East Series opener at Five Flag Speedway in Pensacola, Florida.
Just like McKee, Reaves won in his first ever start on the platform.
The similarities between the two end there.
While McKee exudes a quiet, composed demeanor off the track, Reaves is not afraid to speak his mind. Regardless of whether he enjoyed a dominant outing or had something prevent him from finding Victory Lane, Reaves is always ready to express his viewpoint, which has garnered a plethora of reactions around the industry.
Another key difference between the two is their support systems. McKee is a development driver for Chevrolet and Spire Motorsports; Reaves is employed under Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing.
Reaves possesses another resource in his corner in 2000 NASCAR Cup Series champion and Hall-of-Famer Bobby Labonte.
The relationship between Reaves and Labonte evolved from the two being neighbors to Labonte becoming Reaves’ mentor. For Reaves, having someone like Labonte to lean on has been invaluable.
“Any question I’ve got, [Labonte] is always there,” Reaves said. “He’s got the best advice I could ask for. [He’s told me to think] big picture. Sometimes these races get pretty crazy, so you just have to keep your composure.”
Thinking big picture is what got Reaves back into the East Series title fight after what he admitted was a slow, inconsistent start to 2026. Reaves scored his first ARCA Menards Series win of the year in May when he picked up an East Series triumph at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
Since then, Reaves has found Victory Lane five more times across the ARCA Menards Series platform, including a second East Series win at Michigan’s Flat Rock Speedway at the beginning of August.
But with McKee in control early on, every mistake or poor finish proved costly for Reaves, especially with only eight East Series races on the schedule. Reaves took responsibility for how the season started but never lost sight of the objective at hand.
“[McKee] got the points lead from the start at Hickory. We should have won that race, too,” Reaves said. “We didn’t, but he got that first win, and I struggled really bad. The car has had speed every single race. IRP was really when I felt like we got back in contention to win the championship.”
The catalyst behind that turning point for Reaves at IRP was lapped traffic. A bad exit for Reaves off Turn 4 early in the race allowed McKee to drive to his inside, but it simultaneously put the two in a precarious position with the slower car of Ivis Earley on the bottom of the track.
McKee attempting to split Reaves and Earley proved disastrous, as McKee hit Earley’s left rear while also turning Reaves sideways in Turn 1. Reaves managed to save his car and salvage a ninth-place finish, but McKee also hit the outside retaining wall, which would eventually force him to finish 32nd.
The cushion McKee built over Reaves was now gone, but he was not going to let the setback deter him. All McKee could do was regroup after IRP and focus on closing out a championship he felt should have already been decided in his favor.
“I knew we had to go out there and run as good as we could,” McKee said. “If [IRP] hadn’t happened, I don’t think the points would even be close. I believe we were still 30 [points] ahead there. Including the races we’ve had after that, we would be even further ahead now I feel like. We definitely did a good job getting back to the points lead.”
Having raced with Reaves for several years now, McKee understands what he’s up against every time they share the track. The two have barely left each other’s sightlines in both the East Series and national ARCA Menards Series, but aside from the collision at IRP involving a lapped car, neither has directly impeded the other’s title aspirations.
McKee appreciates having someone like Reaves to push him in a way that is equal parts challenging and productive. He hopes the status quo between them stays in place for the East Series finale Thursday.
“On track, [Reaves and I] race hard,” McKee said. “I race everyone hard I feel like. He races me hard, I race him hard. Whenever we’re around each other, I feel like we both know that. Sometimes it gets a little aggressive, but most of the time it’s not too bad.
“It’s just good racing.”
Reaves shared a near identical viewpoint in regards to how he and McKee race one another. The two walk a metaphorical tightrope every time they come together on track, but Reaves is grateful he and McKee can exchange barbs without ruining the other’s day, a difficult feat given their respective aggressive natures.
Bristol presents a different set of expectations compared to every other race Reaves and McKee have tackled on the ARCA Menards Series platform together. Reaves expects both to put everything on the line for the East Series title and is confident the battle will be aggressive, but fair.
“Definitely rough racing,” Reaves said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Tristan, and I hope he’s got some respect for me. It’s fun racing with somebody like that. It’s super hard competition every week, and he’s really one of the main cars to worry about. I think Bristol will be a good show.
“We’ll have to see what happens.”
McKee is not the only challenge Reaves will face Thursday, as he has never turned a lap around Bristol outside of the simulator.
Yet JGR’s ARCA Menards Series track record at Bristol is nearly perfect. The organization has wrapped up East Series driver’s championships with Sammy Smith and William Sawalich in three of the last five years. JGR also formally secured the owner’s title at Bristol last year with Crews’ victory.
Crews was the only driver that bested McKee in his first Bristol appearance of any kind last year. It took McKee time to figure out how to tackle Bristol in-person, but the feedback he exchanged with Pinnacle Racing Group throughout the day helped him find a cadence around the high-banked short track by the time the checkered flag waved.
The second trip to Bristol for McKee is going to be much different from the first. There is now a championship up for grabs, which will require Reaves to use the knowledge acquired from 2025 to balance out patience and aggression.
“I definitely was pretty fresh back then, but I feel like I have a good baseline going into [Bristol],” McKee said. “I learned a lot about the aero, and where you’re starting as far as the bottom launching and top launching on restarts and how important restarts are. There are a lot of variables, but I feel like I’ll be super prepared.”
With so many cars in the field for Thursday’s race, lapped traffic could very well play a role in deciding who wins the East Series title. In the 2024 East Series finale at Bristol, an accident involving slower traffic collected the points leader in Connor Zilisch, which gave the championship to Sawalich.
A mistake McKee made in lapped traffic at IRP ultimately helped Reaves get back in contention for the championship. Yet Reaves understands how much more pressing the danger is going to be on Thursday with less space to work with to go along with rapid closing speeds, especially in the corners.
Reaves is not letting the scale and design of Bristol intimidate him. Plenty of times before, Reaves has won at a track he visited for the first time and is determined to the same on Thursday, all while claiming an East Series championship in the process.
“It’s just another race track, but it’s also not,” Reaves said. “It’s one of those where it’s crazy. Super high-banked, super fast, a lot different than anything I’ve ever been on. [If I] can take care of my stuff, we’ll be alright.”
Nothing has come easy for Reaves to reach this point with Gibbs. Winning all three East Series events he entered in 2025 gave Reaves high expectations for his first full-time year, but it has taken diligent work and a little bit of luck to only be a single point behind McKee entering the finale.
From Reaves’ perspective, the actual journey carries more significance than whatever the destination at Bristol will be. Despite this, Reaves is determined to utilize all the knowledge acquired from Gibbs, Labonte and so many others to etch himself into the ARCA Menards Series record books as an East Series champion.
“It’d mean a lot to wrap up such a good year we’ve had,” Reaves said. “Even if we don’t win it, my team works so hard every day. Just to win the championship would show how hard we worked, but even if I win it or don’t, it doesn’t change how hard we worked to get there.”
Every part of McKee’s development has been tailored to ensure he is ready for a moment like the East Series championship. McKee has faced plenty of tests against veterans and fellow prospects since before he was a teenager, all of which helped him become a more refined driver.
A title for McKee would be PRG’s second on the ARCA Menards Series platform after previously winning the driver’s championship with Brenden Queen on the national side last year. Building upon PRG’s burgeoning legacy would be a perfect conclusion to what McKee believes has been a near-flawless East Series campaign.
“For my first full-time year in ARCA East, [a championship] would mean a lot,” McKee said. “I feel like our team has fought hard all year long trying to make our cars better throughout these races. There have been dogfights in some of these, so it’d feel good for the whole team I feel like.”
The two East Series title contenders possess many similarities and differences. McKee is prudent and methodical, while Reaves is bold and audacious. Both are proven winners that stand on the precipice of one of their biggest career accomplishments.
Plenty of titles await McKee and Reaves long after Bristol based on their current trajectories. Yet just one will exit The Last Great Colosseum victorious as the 2026 East Series champion.
![visit Sunoco3c [converted] website - opens in the same window](https://www.arcaracing.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2020/01/Sunoco3c-Converted-291x180.png "visit Sunoco3c [converted] website - opens in the same window")
