Who would have thought the 0.555-mile high-banked short track Salem Speedway would be the site of yearly domination? For the third straight year, the winner led every single lap. This year, it was William Sawalich who lapped up to third place in the field.
Sawalich’s fourth career victory sets him as the series leader in victories and it shook up the Frontstretch power rankings. As for the actual point standings, Andres Perez maintained his points lead, now ahead of his teammate Lavar Scott who leapfrogged Greg Van Alst for the runner-up spot in points. Van Alst, Kris Wright and Christian Rose round out the top five in points.
Sawalich’s absolute dominance aside, all other finishing positions, sans last place, featured changes from the starting lineup. As such, here are those power rankings.
1. William Sawalich
Sawalich was perfect at Salem. He was the fastest in the practice session, won the pole, led every lap, won the race and earned the maximum number of points in a race, 49. He also extended Joe Gibbs Racing’s lead in the owner point standings to an unofficial mark of 29.
Furthermore, Sawalich has now contested 20 races in the national ARCA tour, which is the amount of a full season. His stats? Eight wins, 17 top fives, 18 top 10s, 11 pole awards and 1,203 laps led.
That’s impressive, but he drives for the top team in the garage, JGR.
So let’s compare Sawalich’s stats to Jesse Love’s 2023 championship run. Love amassed 10 wins, 17 top fives, 18 top 10s, seven poles and 1,477 laps led.
Love comes out on top in that comparison but head-to-head it’s much closer. Sawalich bested Love seven times and Love came out ahead six times. Love won five times whereas Sawalich went to victory lane four times. Their average finishing positions are razor-close too. Sawalich’s is 3.6 and Love’s is 3.8.
What’s my point then?
Sawalich was not just dominant at Salem; he’s been phenomenal every time he’s driven his No. 18 Toyota. With his eighth career win, he climbs to the top in these rankings.
2. Andres Perez
Perez’s season reminds me of Daniel Dye’s 2022 season. In 11 races, Perez has five top fives, 10 top 10s and an average finishing position of 5.8. In the 20-race ’22 season, Dye had 13 top fives, 17 top 10s and an average finishing position of 6.4.
The difference between Dye’s season and this one was that in ’22 Nick Sanchez, Sammy Smith and Taylor Gray all both won and finished in the top 10 in points. In 2024? That’s not been the case.
At Salem, Perez dueled with Scott for second place and he came out ahead. The downside? He finished a whopping 5.314 seconds behind Sawalich. Nevertheless, Perez remains the points leader and Rev’s performance at the past three short tracks shows it has closed the gap behind the No. 18 team. That bodes well for Perez in his championship quest.
3. Lavar Scott
Scott qualified second and finished third at Salem. Salem also marked a milestone for him. It was his 30th race in the ARCA platform. In those races, he has 16 top fives, 23 top 10s and 106 laps led. He’s been progressively improving too. In the past five races, he has three top fives, four top 10s and completed all but one lap.
Is it too late for him to catch Perez for the driver’s championship? No, but it’s a challenge. He has nine races to erase his 48-point deficit. That’s a little more than five points per race. And oh yeah, he must beat Perez too. He came up one spot shy at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park and Salem. As such, he trails Perez by one spot in these rankings.
4. Christian Rose
Rose’s statistics have dropped off from last year, but Salem was a much-needed strong run. He raced Will Kimmel and Isaac Johnson hard in the closing laps and ultimately ended up sandwiched between the two in fifth place.
“Kind of same thing as last week, we had a really good car,” Rose told TobyChristie.com post-race. “It fired off, we got too free as the race went. Pickle [Ryan London, his crew chief] made great adjustments at the break. Went a lap down, fought, got the lucky dog back. Got it probably halfway to three-quarters of what we needed to and then at the end he really got it right. Were able to take advantage of the restarts, really start working the top. I couldn’t work the top earlier in the race just being too free. But that thing came to life.
“We were all over the back of the No. 69 [Kimmel]. That was fun as heck running with Will and the No. 34 [Johnson] car. I mean that kid, for not running a lot, ran us pretty hard and Trevor did a great job up top working us through that chaos. Those 35 laps of ‘Inside, he’s looking,’ just battling. So when you can run with someone like Will here, he can drive this place with his eyes closed so that was pretty special
5. Will Kimmel
Shoutout to Kimmel. In two starts this season, he has a pair of fourth-place finishes. To boot, those came at two different racetracks, 1.5-mile intermediate Charlotte Motor Speedway and high-banked Salem.
In the past three years, Kimmel has contested 10 ARCA races. His results? Four top fives and five top 10s. Driving for his self-owned team that only competes in select races, Kimmel has shown he is a talented wheelman. His good run nabs him the last spot in these rankings. Though I know he badly wants to win one at Salem in ARCA.
Paint Scheme of the Race
Although HendrickCars.com sponsors Kyle Larson and Rajah Caruth in the NASCAR Cup Series and Craftsman Truck Series, it was pretty to see the company onboard Corey Day’s No. 28 Chevrolet in his series debut. The fresh look for Pinnacle Racing Group’s racecar earns Day the Salem Paint Scheme of the Race honors.
As the tweet notes, Day qualified fifth, an impressive start to his ARCA career. He ran well too, racing for a top-five spot throughout the race. Yet on lap 132, Day attempted to clear himself in front of Scott and disaster struck.
The wreck left Day with a learned lesson and a 15th-place DNF. While the outcome was not reflective of the speed in his Chevy, Day certainly proved he can wheel an ARCA car and he will be one to watch in his two remaining starts this season.
While Day will not pilot an ARCA racecar until Bristol Motor Speedway, the other competitors head to the 0.375-mile Elko Speedway. The Minnesota short track will host the series on Saturday, Aug. 3 at 9 p.m. ET with live coverage provided by FOX Sports 1 and FloRacing.
About the author
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.
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