ARCA Preview: Circle City 200

The ARCA Menards Series rolls into Indianapolis, Indiana this week to tackle Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, known commonly as IRP, for race 10 of 20 on the 2024 schedule. 

Last season, when ARCA took to the 0.686-mile race track, Jesse Love proved victorious while leading 154 of the 200 laps and lapping all but seven cars in the process. Twenty-five cars were entered for that event, which included ARCA Menards Series East competitors — the race was a combination race, much like this year’s event.

This season, the preliminary entry list sees 31 drivers entered for Friday’s (July 19) Circle City 200, up six entries from last year.

Points leader Andres Perez enters IRP 40 points ahead of second place, though he returns to a track where he struggled in 2023. The 19-year-old finished eighth last season, one lap down, marking his worst short-track finish of that season. Tracks under a mile in length continue to prove relatively challenging for Perez, as he only has two top fives this season on that discipline of track, coming at Dover Motor Speedway and Berlin Raceway. 

As for his Rev Racing teammate, Lavar Scott enters IRP coming off his best finish of the season, a second-place effort at Berlin. He too ran IRP in 2023, but unlike his teammate, Scott finished on the lead lap then and earned a top five with a fifth-place finish. Scott now sits only six points behind second-place Greg Van Alst in the points standings and could overtake the spot this week. 

For Van Alst, the driver of the No. 35 is on a streak of two top-10 finishes, which is much needed after three finishes outside of that mark previously. He enters his home track for the third time in his career, having finished inside the top 10 in both starts, with a best finish of seventh coming in 2023. He’s also running double duty this weekend, making his third career NASCAR Xfinity Series start in the No. 07 for SS GreenLight Racing on the big Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval on Saturday. 

Venturini Motorsports will bring its standard five entries to IRP this weekend, with full-time drivers Kris Wright, Toni Breidinger and Amber Balcaen in their regular entries, along with Gio Ruggiero in the No. 20 and Dean Thompson in the No. 55. 

Breidinger sits highest in points of the three full-time drivers. She’s in fourth place, 57 points behind leader Perez and 11 points behind third-place Scott. Breidinger enters IRP on a streak of three consecutive top-10 finishes, with four of her last five races resulting in top 10s as well. The 25-year-old’s had success on the short tracks this season, finishing in the top 10 on every track a mile in length or shorter besides Dover, where she crashed out late. In two previous IRP races, she’s finished 17th and ninth, with the better of the two finishes coming in 2023.

For Wright, the driver of the No. 15 sits fifth in the season standings and enters IRP for the first time in an ARCA car. He has one previous start at the track, however, coming in the truck series in 2022, where he finished 31st driving for Niece Motorsports. Wright is coming off a much-needed fourth-place finish at Berlin, which snapped a three-race streak of finishes outside the top 15. 

The team’s third full-time driver, Balcaen, returns to IRP for the first time since her 2022 season with Rette Jones Racing, when she finished 21st in the race. Like Wright, Balcaen snapped a three-race streak of finishes outside of the top 15 at Berlin with a 10th-place finish, though she has fallen to seventh place in the season standings during that run. 

With this week’s race being a combination with the East, Connor Zilisch will return to the national division of the series for the first time since Iowa Speedway. Zilisch will have quite the mark to live up to, however, as he enters with two wins and a second-place finish in three previous national division starts. However, it’ll be a new track for the 17-year-old Pinnacle Racing Group driver, having never seen IRP before.

The team has one previous start at the track, last season, finishing runner-up with Luke Fenhaus behind the wheel. 

William Sawalich and Joe Gibbs Racing enter Friday’s race having won the last two races and finishing inside of the top two in three straight. His most recent win at Berlin proved dominant, leading 195 of the 200 laps run that night. Last season at IRP, Sawalich finished fourth and led one lap, which is largely uncompetitive for his standards, especially on short ovals.

This race is important for Sawalich, who sits 17 points behind Zilisch in the ARCA East standings with only three races left in the season.

A handful of drivers entered for the race this weekend are Indiana-born.

That includes Van Alst, Brayton Laster, Presley Sorah, Isaac Johnson and Zachary Tinkle. Sorah and Johnson are both returning to the entry list after a few weeks off. Sorah last ran at Iowa with Clubb Racing Inc., while Johnson returns for the first time since Phoenix Raceway but is still driving for Van Alst Motorsports.

As for Laster, he’ll be entered with a team new to him, driving for Wayne Peterson Motorsports in the No. 06. Laster and Johnson each have one previous ARCA start at IRP, finishing 20th and 12th respectively in 2023. It’ll be Sorah’s first ARCA start at the track. For Tinkle, he’ll continue his full-time effort in the East series with Fast Track Racing in the No. 11.

Friday night’s Circle City 200 at IRP is slated to begin at 5:30 p.m. ET, with television coverage being carried by Fox Sports 1. The field will endure a 45-minute practice session at 1:30 p.m., and then a qualifying session shortly after at 2:30.