Raise your hand if you thought the ARCA Menards Series and ARCA Menards Series combination race at the Milwaukee Mile on Sunday was exciting.
Unless you’re a William Sawalich fan because he won the race, a Connor Zilisch fan because he kept his East points lead or an Andres Perez fan because he kept the national series points lead, you’re probably not raising your hand.
That’s OK — not all races are exciting. Nevertheless, there are still some storylines from each race. For example, after Christian Rose spun Toni Breidinger to bring out the caution on lap 65, the two exchanged words post-race.
With only a quarter of the 2024 main series left, here are the ARCA power rankings after the Sprecher 150 at Milwaukee.
1. William Sawalich
How can Sawalich not be No. 1? In his part-time national division slate, he has four straight wins, all of which he led the most laps. He’s led 1,054 laps of his 1,567 total. That’s an astounding 67.2%.
Here’s another cool way to view Sawalich’s dominance this year: 2,027 laps have been logged this ’24 ARCA season. He’s led 51.9% of those despite being ineligible to compete in five races because he is not yet 18.
At Milwaukee, he sat on the pole after posting the fastest practice lap and led 149 of the 150 laps. To boot, it’s his second straight win at Milwaukee and the fourth straight for his No. 18 team
“We kind of had to set a good pace and then the No. 28 fell off a little bit,” Sawalich told reporters post-race. “So then got a little less challenging. I made it to not set as fast of a pace. I mean the whole time not worried about saving my tires, we had a really good Starkey Soundgear Toyota Camry today. Joe Gibbs Racing always brings me a good car. We’re competitive every race we go to, so super thankful for that.”
The FOX Sports broadcasters touched upon it and yes, when Sawalich pilots the No. 18 Toyota, he’s not just fast, he’s the best in the field.
2. Connor Zilisch
For the first time in his national series starts in ’24, and the second time in his six-race national tenure, Zilisch did not win. Yet he kept pace with Sawalich, even leading one lap, the only lap Sawalich did not lead in the race.
“I wish I had an answer for ya for that one,” Zilisch told Frontstretch post-race about what he needed to erase his 4.675-second deficit and catch Sawalich. “You know, you’re going to have days like this in racing. You know, this is a track that I feel like this team struggled at last year, and we had a lot of emphasis on it coming into it and we definitely ran better than we did last year. It’s still going to take a good bit more to run with the No. 18, but still super proud of my entire Pinnacle Racing Group team. It’s been a really fun year racing with them and getting an opportunity to race these fast Chevys. We got one more race left in the championship at Bristol. Just got to go there, have a good clean day and close out the championship.”
Zilisch maintained his 16-point lead in the East standings over Sawalich with only the season finale at Bristol Motor Speedway left. Barring an unfortunate turn of events, Zilisch will claim the title there. Yet in these power rankings covering the main series, Sawalich’s W ahead of Zilisch places Zilisch second in these rankings.
3. Lavar Scott
How is Lavar Scott, who only finished three spots ahead of his teammate Perez and trails him in the standings, ahead of Perez in these rankings?
Because Scott overcame more adversity along the way at Milwaukee.
First, he fought brake issues in practice which returned during the race. During qualifying, he experienced an engine issue. Due to that issue, his Rev Racing team made adjustments which relegated him to start at the rear. He methodically drove his way forward, stayed on the lead lap the whole race despite Sawalich’s torrid pace, and came home third.
Statistically, Scott has six top fives in his last seven races. Will he catch Perez for the title? Not without accruing bonus points via scoring poles, leading laps and winning races. Nevertheless, his Sprecher 150 performance nets him third on this list.
4. Andres Perez
Another ARCA race, another top 10 for Perez. Shocker, I know. Not much new there, right?
Here’s an under-the-radar factoid though: Of the drivers who have not attempted all East races, Perez is second-highest, trailing Toni Breidinger by only one point. Furthermore, Breidinger has one more East start than Perez. Looking at it differently, of the part-time drivers, Perez has the second-most miles logged in East races, trailing only Scott.
All of this is to say Perez is 10th in East points. No, it’s nowhere near as prestigious as winning the main ARCA title, which he is well on his way toward, but those results, in combo races featuring larger entry lists, have helped propel Perez toward the ’24 national division championship.
5. Kris Wright
I would be remiss if I did not include Alex Clubb putting a decal, later removed, on his No. 03 after he stated Kris Wright wrecked him at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.
Yet Wright has strung together seven straight top 10s with four top fives among them. At Milwaukee, he finished fourth, which impressed further due to only the top five finishing on the lead lap.
Do Wright’s successes silence his doubters? Frankly, he said his critics don’t affect him.
“I don’t really care,” he said. “You know, they’re doubters for a reason. Trying to keep the momentum rolling for us.”
To be fair, Wright has not really contended for victory in his No. 15 Venturini Motorsports Toyota. If he begins leading the field, he’ll rise up this list. For now, he places fifth on the leaderboard.
Paint Scheme of the Race
Full disclosure: no one from Frontstretch attended the ARCA race at the Springfield Mile, so we don’t know what happened between Clubb and Wright. The TV broadcast didn’t show the cause of Clubb’s wreck either.
Yet Clubb’s decal garnered him attention in his first full-time season, which depending on funding, might not remain full time.
The facts don’t lie, though. Clubb Racing Inc.’s tweet of the Wright decal was viewed by 66K people. The tweet of him removing the decal? Another 10K viewers. Lastly, his tweet recapping all the attention from it was seen by 5.3K people.
In total, that adds up to over 80,000 views just on Twitter alone. The stats don’t lie, so we’ll award Clubb the Paint Scheme of the Race award for a truly eye-catching decal.
And oh yeah, based on Clubb’s tweets, Wright blocked him on Twitter. Wright said he got a good laugh from the decal, but … I’ll leave the rest up to our readers to decide.
ARCA makes its annual Labor Day visit to the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds. The 1-mile dirt track will host the series on Sunday, Sep. 1 at 8:30 p.m. ET live on FS1 and FloRacing.
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.