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Tristan McKee Signs Spire Driver Development Deal, Will Run ARCA Races

Tristan McKee has been signed to Spire Motorsports’ driver development program, Spire announced Jan. 16.

As part of the deal, McKee will compete in the ARCA Menards Series in 2025 in an as-yet-unknown number of races, alongside starts in various other series.

McKee became the youngest winner in CARS Tour history in 2022 when he won at Dillon Motor Speedway at 12 years old.

He’ll continue to run CARS events in 2025, as well as in the Trans Am CUBE3 Architecture TA2 Series full time.

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“We are really excited to have Tristan on board with us at Spire,” Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson said in a team release. “We’ve taken a lot of pride through the years in identifying young talent and bringing them to NASCAR, however this wasn’t one of those cases. Josh Wise and Lorin Ranier called from General Motors, and based on my long history with both, it was one of those ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me’ kind of things.

“Frankly, everyone around Tristan has nothing but good things to say about his speed, work ethic and versatility. He obviously comes from a great family so we can’t take too much credit. Tristan will be making noise in this sport in the short and long term and we’re excited to be on this journey with him.”

“I think it’s pretty cool,” McKee added. “Nothing like this has happened to me before, so I’m really grateful for the opportunity that Jeff Dickerson and everyone at Spire Motorsports has given me. I think 2025 is going to be a really good year. We’re going to have plenty of races on the schedule, so I’m just looking forward to the opportunity and I can’t thank the people from Spire enough.”

The car for McKee’s ARCA starts has not been announced, though the team previously revealed its plans to field Corey Day in three series starts in 2025 in its No. 77.

Frontstretch.com

Rutherford is the managing editor of Frontstretch, a position he gained in 2015 after serving on the editing staff for two years. At his day job, he's a journalist covering music and rock charts at Billboard. He lives in New York City, but his heart is in Ohio -- you know, like that Hawthorne Heights song.