BROOKLYN, Mich. – Greg Van Alst finished sixth in the ARCA Menards Series race at Michigan International Speedway and unofficially stands 71 points out of the lead.
Yet in two days, Van Alst and his self-owned team will skip Sunday’s (Aug. 18) race at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.
“Doesn’t matter,” Van Alst told Frontstretch about where he stands in the points. “They don’t pay enough in points to justify.”
Van Alst has one top five and seven top 10s this season, yet the grind of the year has taken its toll on his organization.
“At the beginning of the year [the races] are spread out, so they’re easier for teams like ours,” he continued. “When you get into the summer months, you start running back-to-back-to-back [and] it makes it tougher.”
While he only has two DNFs, Van Alst estimated those two wrecked racecars took away three races worth of his season’s budget.
Furthermore, Van Alst has fielded Isaac Johnson in a second part-time entry, the No. 34. Johnson has two top 10s in four starts with one more in the works.
“Yeah, if we could bring two cars, the No. 34 is a rental car program like every other car in here, right,” Van Alst said. “Every other car in here is a rental. The No. 35 is not. So, it brings no outside funding at all. I’m not knocking what everybody else does, but that’s what it is. When the No. 35 shows up, it takes money out of what I have, and I only have so much available.”
Indeed, the lack of sponsorship has contributed to Van Alst’s decision to switch to part-time status.
“I guess there’s a misconception in the world that this stuff is easy to do,” he said. “It’s not easy to do. If it was easy there’d be a lot more people here.”
While some organizations have fielded a second entry — often a start and park one — to help fund their seasons, Van Alst does not view it as financially worthwhile.
“I’ll never say no, but at the end of the day it takes X amount of dollars to put a car on the racetrack and most of these deals aren’t enough to put a car on the racetrack,” he noted. “There are guys who want to do it for $5,000. F*ck, I could go build a fence and make more money than that.”
Van Alst Motorsports is a small organization based out of Indiana. It lacks manufacturer support and big-dollar sponsorship, and its members work full-time jobs. The pot finally reached its boiling point.
“At the end of the day, it just boils down to we’ve been racing too much and not working enough,” Van Alst said. “We don’t have manufacturer support that gets us anything. We are a very small fish in a pretty good-sized pond. I’m not mad about that, I’m not bitter or upset about it or anything like that, it’s just the facts of it.
“When we set out in 2021, we ran seven races after we started to run five. I would almost approach things like that. And I have said from the beginning of this year that we are trying to run full time. I have never said we are running 100% full time. It has always been we are trying because, at the end of the day, we don’t have someone who’s dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into our program.
“And that was the thought process with Isaac and the No. 34 car. Every race I can put him in gets a little bit further down the road. We just got to keep plugging, keep doing what we’re doing. But the dirt tracks, I’ve always said if you’re not running full time the dirt tracks are the first two you cut out. You tear the cars up, you could overheat motors, they don’t pay well but they’re fun to drive.
“I will absolutely hate Sunday, and I’ll probably be working out in the yard, so I won’t watch the race; won’t have the heart to. They are fun to drive but they just tear up equipment. I just cannot justify tearing up my short track car at a dirt track when I’m going to use it at Bristol.”
Van Alst will be at Kansas Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway. Beyond that, including 2025, is uncertain, although he will continue to run some ARCA events. When he is at the racetrack, he expects to be a fast contender.
“There’s no reason to run unless you’re doing it top tier, at least that’s my philosophy. So I’d rather run fewer races and be competitive than show up and just be out there.”
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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