The 2025 ARCA Menards Series East season officially kicks off on Saturday (March 22) at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla. This will be the sixth straight year that Five Flags has been slated to open the East season, and the eighth time overall dating back to 2013. A total of 23 cars are entered for the Pensacola 150.
The 2025 East season again has eight races with four combination races with the ARCA Menards Series. East drivers return to standalone racetracks Five Flags, Flat Rock Speedway and Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. On Easter weekend (Friday, April 18) the East field, for its fourth standalone race, will accompany the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series at Rockingham Speedway.
The top three in the 2024 East standings graduated to the NASCAR national series. Back-to-back champion William Sawalich and runner-up Connor Zilisch are full time in the Xfinity Series and third-place Gio Ruggiero is now in Trucks.
None of the seven Five Flags winners are competing in the season opener so someone new will go to victory lane at the famed 0.5-mile short track.
Fourth in East points the past two years, Zachary Tinkle returns to the No. 11 Toyota for Fast Track Racing. He should be one of the frontrunners in points by season’s end. He scored a career-best two top fives and four top 10s in the eight-race ’24 season so he should again be one of the frontrunners in points this season. In two trips to Five Flags, Tinkle has a pair of top 10s.
Speaking of experience, Timmy Hill has nearly 500 starts in the NASCAR national series but will be making his second career East start at Five Flags. Hill will drive his Hill Motorsports No. 56 full time in the East this season.
Tyler Reif, who finished 19th at Phoenix Raceway in the 2025 ARCA/ARCA Menards Series West combination race, will make his third-ever East series start at Five Flags. Reif will drive the No. 23 Sigma Performance Services Chevrolet full time in the East. Reif has 27 ARCA West starts with a pair of runner-up points finishes and three wins. He will look to use his West Coast luck to get a good result in Pensacola and a great result in the East points.
The No. 79 Chevrolet, driven by Isaac Kitzmiller, will be one of seven full-time East drivers competing for the championship. Kitzmiller, at just 15 years old, will use his father, and full-time ARCA national driver, Jason Kitzmiller as a mentor. Additionally, Isaac Kitzmiller has 10-time ARCA champion Frank Kimmel serving as his crew chief along with four-time Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday Jr. as a mentor.
London McKenzie and DL Wilson will also race for the East championship for CW Motorsports. Wilson, in the No. 39 Chevrolet, looks to best his previous championship finish of fifth, while McKenzie looks to use previous experience in INEX Summer Shootout Series to score a decent points finish in the No. 93 Chevrolet.
Takuma Koga, ARCA East’s only full-time Japanese driver, has 125 races run in ARCA West dating back to 2002. Koga will make his first-ever start in the East series this weekend at Five Flags in the No. 12 Toyota for Fast Track.
Rita Goulet will be in her third season of ARCA East competition, piloting the No. 31 Toyota this weekend in Pensacola. After finishing 14th in points in 2023 and 11th in 2024, Goulet looks for a top-10 finish in points for the 2025 season.
The No. 18 team won the 2021-23 races at Five Flags, including twice with Sawalich, and it will have three drivers share the Toyota throughout the East season. Max Reaves will drive it three times, starting with at Five Flags. Sawalich will drive it at Rockingham and Brent Crews will pilot it four times. As Crews showed at Phoenix, expect the No. 18 to win multiple times this year.
Carson Brown will make his ARCA East debut on Saturday. The fast rookie will be in the No. 4 Chevrolet for Hettinger Racing. At just 16 years old, Brown has five years of racing under his belt, including winning the Allen Turner Pro Late Model championship last year at Five Flags.
Truck Series full-timer Connor Mosack will make his first start in the East Series since 2022. Mosack is a two-time ARCA winner and his Pinnacle Racing Group team won the ARCA season opener at Daytona International Speedway. Interestingly, Mosack will pilot the No. 28 Chevrolet one day after competing in the Truck race at fellow Florida racetrack Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The Pensacola 150 at Five Flags will take the green flag at 8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 22, and will be live on FloRacing.
