ARCA’s History at Rockingham Speedway

The ARCA Menards Series East heads to famed Rockingham Speedway next on its schedule, and while the track’s ARCA history isn’t as extensive as it is on the NASCAR side, the track has still seen its fair share of action. 

First, it’s important to note that the trip to Rockingham is hardly the first storied racetrack that East teams have endured. The season-opening race, held at Five Flags Speedway, is well known for its annual late model event, The Snowball Derby, as well as numerous other grassroots races. The season-opening East race was won by 15-year-old rookie Max Reaves.

The remainder of the East schedule has no shortage of other renowned tracks, either. After Rockingham, the series heads to Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. The track located in the heart of Nashville hosted NASCAR events from 1958 to 1984 and has its own annual late model event, the All American 400. From there, the series will go to ARCA’s backyard, Flat Rock Speedway, and later in the year, concludes its season at Bristol Motor Speedway.

However, none of these races have generated as much hype as the return to Rockingham. NASCAR ran the track annually from 1965 to 2004; it then returned for a handful of one-off races in the late 2000s and early 2010s when ARCA’s history at the track primarily takes place. 

The ARCA Menards Series held four races at the track from 2008 to 2010, visiting twice in 2009.

The inaugural race saw now three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano find victory lane, leading 257 of the 312 laps that day. Four-time Cup Series winner Ken Schrader finished runner up that day, leading 13 laps. Also spending time out front was Michael Annett, and Matt Hawkins, each of whom finished inside the top five. Logano, driving for Venturini Motorsports, put all but the top five a lap down in the race after starting on the pole, enduring very little pressure all race long.

Also notable from the race, an astonishing 50 cars started the event with 51 entrants. The 50 starters were seven more than a typical ARCA race at the time. A mix of current household names and present-day ARCA drivers were in that large field, including Jeremy Clements, Justin Allgaier, Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Justin Marks, and Brad Smith.

The race itself had one major highlight, an 11-car pileup on the backstretch on lap 12. Justin Lofton, who was running in second place at the time, ran over James Hylton while checking up for a single-car spin, ensuing chaos took out other full-time competitors, including Scott Speed.

A year later, the series returned for the first of two races on the 2009 schedule. Despite a persistent drizzle, a much calmer, and shorter, race ensued. Schrader led 185 of the 200 laps but ran out of gas late with Sean Caisse passing him for the win with three laps to go. This race also saw a few future stars run, including Grant Enfinger and Parker Kligerman. The win marked the lone victory for Caisse in the ARCA national division.

The series returned later in the 2009 season, marking the final race on the calendar that year. The cleanest race at the track to date ensued, running without major incident throughout. Kligerman led 66 laps, including the final 64 to win his ninth race of the season, though falling just short of a championship. Kligerman was five points behind eventual champion Lofton when the checkered flag flew. Chad Finley led a majority of the early stages of the race from the pole, and Frank Kimmel and Enfinger also led a handful of laps in the race. Also in the field that day, Corey LaJoie, Brett Moffitt and Chris Buescher were all concluding their first ARCA seasons.

The final time the national division visited the track was in 2010, and much like the previous season, it marked the final race on the schedule.

Unlike the previous three iterations, the sun was out over the North Carolina track that day, as Patrick Sheltra was crowned as the 2010 champion over Craig Goess and Tom Hessert. Like the 2009 season finale, the race was much cleaner than the first two races, with Chad Hackenbracht being the cause of two of the four cautions. Kevin Swindell led the first 52 laps, before losing the lead to Marks, who also led 25. Sheltra led the most laps with 73, all consecutively, before allowing Ty Dillon to get past him. He led the final 41 laps and found victory lane for the second race in a row. Two more present-day drivers concluded their debut ARCA season that day as well, Josh Williams and Timmy Hill, both being just 16 years old at the time.

While that concludes the national ARCA division at Rockingham, the East division also has visited the track exclusively a handful of times. Each race there was before the series was under the ARCA banner, with the first six races coming from 1988 to 1992. Those races, under the series title of Busch North in combination with the Busch Series, saw many notable winners. Mark Martin won the inaugural race, with Dale Earnhardt, Ward Burton, Dale Jarrett and Morgan Shepherd each finding victory lane in those races.

However, the series took a lengthy hiatus before returning, doing so in 2012. Much like the previous two versions with the national division, the race concluded the 2012 season. Three drivers, Moffitt, LaJoie and Kyle Larson entered with a chance to win the title. Thirty cars were entered for the 100-lap race, an event that ended up being a classic championship battle. Tyler Reddick, who was in his first season of ARCA competition caught Moffitt, who was leading and was one lap away from a championship, and made contact with him down the backstretch, spinning him out for the win. Moffitt ended up finishing 21st, leaving the championship title to Larson, despite being less than half a mile away from winning it himself. 

The win was Reddick’s first ARCA win, in a race that saw numerous present-day Cup drivers, including Chase Elliott, Bubba Wallace and Larson, as well as current NASCAR employees Ben Kennedy and Jesse Little. The race also had an infamous Rockingham backstretch flip, as Dylan Presnell climbed the wall, and skidded on his roof down the length of the backstretch. 

Since 2012, ARCA has not visited Rockingham. NASCAR hasn’t either, aside from a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race there in 2013. However, on Easter weekend, that’s all set to change.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series and Truck Series are set to take to the track on April 18 and 19, with ARCA East running prior to Xfinity on Saturday. The green flag for that race will fly at 1:30 p.m. ET and will be aired on FloRacing. The race is not a combination event with the national division, but a large field is expected to run.