ARCA Preview: Tide 150 at Kansas

The ARCA Menards Series heads to Kansas Speedway for its fifth race of the 2024 season and its third race weekend in a row. The Tide 150 is slated to kick off a trio of races at the racetrack throughout the weekend. 

There are 26 teams entered on the preliminary entry list for Kansas, tied for the second most since 2017, which is only behind last May’s race, which saw 28 cars enter. 

Historically, ARCA at Kansas has seen a plethora of winners go on to have successful careers in the higher ranks of the sport. Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs, Corey Heim, Chase Briscoe, Parker Kligerman, and more recently Jesse Love and Nick Sanchez, have all found victory lane at the 1.5-mile speedway. 

One former winner is in the field this weekend, as Connor Mosack will pilot the No. 28 Chevrolet for Pinnacle Racing Group. Mosack won the last time the series was at Kansas in September, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. 

A pair of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regulars will be in the ARCA field, pulling double duty. Dean Thompson will return to Venturini Motorsports, driving the No. 55. Thompson made five starts with the team last year, including both races at Kansas. In those races, he finished second and eighth, respectively. It’ll be Thompson’s first ARCA start of the 2024 season.

Lawless Alan and Reaume Brothers Racing will field an ARCA entry this week for the first time this season as well. It’ll be the first time the RBR banner is run in ARCA. For Alan, it’ll be his first ARCA-sanctioned start since 2020, when he ran a handful of ARCA Menards Series West races for Bill McAnally Racing. Alan will carry sponsorship from AUTOParkIt, much like he does in his Truck Series efforts.

Alongside Thompson and its trio of full-time drivers, VMS will have Jake Finch back in its No. 20 this weekend. It’ll be Finch’s first start since his dominating win at Talladega Superspeedway, a race in which he led every lap. Finch has seen Kansas before, finishing fifth there last September, also driving for VMS that day. As for the other three VMS drivers, each will look to rebound from Dover Motor Speedway, a race in which all three were involved in incidents, and only Kris Wright notched a top 10. 

The current points leader, Andres Perez de Lara, heads to Kansas for the third time in his career this weekend. His first attempt was his strongest, finishing sixth last May, but he followed it up in September with a 17th-place finish. Perez de Lara has three top 10s through the first four races of the season, good enough to give him a narrow one-point lead in the standings. His Rev Racing teammate, Lavar Scott, will see Kansas for the second time in his career this weekend, as he finished fourth the last time the series raced at the track. Scott is coming off his first top five of the 2024 season last weekend at Dover, where he finished fourth. 

The man who is one point behind Perez de Lara for the points lead, Greg Van Alst, will tackle Kansas for the sixth time in his career. Van Alst has a best finish of seventh in those starts, a mark he earned twice: one in his first track start in 2021, and the other in 2022. 

After a hard crash at Dover, Christian Rose lost his points lead and now sits 13 points back of Perez de Lara, in third place. However, the 21st-place result is not a complete damper on a very strong start to his 2024 season. He has already tied his 2023 total of top fives, with two, in a fifth of the races. He will run Kansas for the fourth time in his career this weekend, a track where he has finished inside of the top 10 each time he’s attempted. 

Tanner Gray will return to the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 this weekend, in place of William Sawalich, who is still not yet old enough to run the larger tracks. Gray has run two races this season, finishing 24th at Daytona International Speedway and third at Talladega. He has one previous ARCA start at Kansas, finishing sixth with TRICON Garage in the season finale race of the 2019 season.

Cook Racing Technologies will bring a pair of Kansas rookies to the track this weekend in Tanner Reif and Marco Andretti. For the 18-year-old Reif, it’ll be his third start of the season, and his first on a 1.5-mile length track. He finished 14th in his season debut at Phoenix Raceway for the team and 22nd at Dover after an early crash. As for Andretti, he has seen Kansas before, running five NTT IndyCar Series races at the track from 2006 to 2010. He had a best finish of fifth in those starts but will now tackle the track for the first time in over a decade and for the first time in a stock car. The start of his ARCA season has not been ideal, battling numerous mechanical gremlins, with a best finish of 19th. 

Andy Jankowiak and KLAS Racing will run Kansas for the fourth time in that span. The 36-year-old only has one top 10 in those three previous starts, with a 10th place last September. Now attempting the full season for the first time in his career, Jankowiak sits 38 points behind the points leader, in seventh. He’ll look to add his third top 10 of the season this weekend. 

The Tide 150 at Kansas Speedway will kick off on Saturday, May 4, at 2 p.m. ET, with the television broadcast being carried by FOX Sports 1.