When Late Model Stock cars rolled out of Florence, S.C., last November, there weren’t many names in the short track world hotter than Treyten Lapcevich.
Fresh off a win in the South Carolina 400, Lapcevich had just completed a successful first year of Late Model Stock competition and was looking toward bigger opportunities on the horizon.
Unfortunately, those opportunities never came to fruition, causing a sudden change of plans for Lapcevich’s 2025 season. that kept the young Canadian driver relatively off the radar.
That all changed when the ARCA Menards Series rolled into Berlin Raceway on June 14. In just his second ARCA start, Lapcevich led flag-to-flag, pacing the field for all 200 laps en route to the first ARCA victory for himself and Nitro Motorsports.
Even with that dominant win, there were plenty of questions left to be answered. Are there more opportunities coming? How did one of the hottest Late Model Stock drivers in the country end up without a secured ride for 2025, and what had said driver been up to prior to the triumph at Berlin?
Frontstretch sat down with Lapcevich to get those answers, along with plenty of others mixed in the conversation. In Part 1 of a two-part interview, Lapcevich covers the experience of being an ARCA winner at Berlin, what he’s been up to in 2025 and the freedom of racing without any pressure this season.
Chase Folsom, Frontstretch: What was that whole [Berlin] weekend like, getting to run the car with Nitro [Motorsports], leading flag to flag, getting your first ARCA win and their first win as a race team?
Treyten Lapcevich: Yeah, it was pretty cool. It was a deal that came together really quick to begin with. It was only about the week before that I kind of found out that I was going to be driving. So [I’m] really thankful for that opportunity.
But yeah, we got to the track and just [had] a really good race car right off the trailer. We just kind of fine tuned on it in practice. It was pretty good. We didn’t mock up or anything in practice, just kind of focused on race runs. We knew that we had a pretty good piece, we just needed to make those fine-tuning adjustments.
Shannon Rush and the whole Nitro Motorsports team were really a pleasure to work with and they [were] really able to get that car dialed in. I felt good going in, I felt like we were gonna be competitive. There was no doubt about that.
You know, I probably wouldn’t have thought that we were gonna set it on the pole and lead all 200 laps and win like we did. But [it was] just a really good race car and everything kind of went our way.
Folsom: So you ran Money In The Bank prior to that. Did you know you were gonna run the ARCA race when you were there for the the supers [late model] race?
Lapcevich: I didn’t know for sure. I knew that there was kind of a possibility that it could happen.
We actually had planned to run that race [Money In the Bank] no matter what. We ran the Battle at Berlin last August and we had a really good time. It was kind of a rough one for us because we showed up with completely the wrong motor package and all that, just not knowing Berlin and what it was.
It’s funny because it reminds me a lot of Florence in the sense that everyone tells you going in that there’s no grip and there’s no bite. You’re like: ‘Agh, there’s no way it’s that bad.’ And it is really that bad.
So yeah, we planned to get back there with the Super Late Model, bring a different package and just have some fun because it really is an awesome track. Just so happened to be [that] it probably helped prepare me for that ARCA race as well.
Folsom: So, you’ve run two ARCA races this year. You’ve got a first and a third. Has that led to any opportunities brewing down the line, maybe this year or next season?
Lapcevich: Yeah, I mean, the opportunities are there. It’s just kind of like how our sport is now though, right? Like, the opportunities are probably better than I’ve ever had before and they’re cheaper than they ever have been, but it’s still a lot of money.
It’s just kind of how it is. No one’s knocking on the door saying that they’ve got a free ride and we’re not really expecting that, either. I’ve been really lucky to have the partners that I have, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, they made both of these ARCA starts happen.
Evirum has been along with me all last year and this year as well, so [I’m] really thankful to have those guys. It’s a little different this year, not having a set schedule or a set plan on what we’re gonna do. Not racing anything full time. But we’re just kind of hitting what we can.
If more opportunities come to drive, it’d be really nice and I’d love that. But it’s a tough one, for sure. It’s just kind of how it all rolls.
Folsom: You raced the CARS Tour full time last year, but like you said, this year you don’t have a set schedule. What have you been doing this season?
Lapcevich: Man, I’ve raced probably five or six different cars now this year already. I ran some Pro Late Model races up here in Canada, I was driving the No. 0 car, which is owned by Glen Styres, also one of my supporters for quite a while. He’s got a lot of racecars here, so he lets me drive them when he’s driving another car.
Ran a couple of the APC [United Late Model Series] races, had a lot of fun doing that. Then we had our own car out, which was actually a Super Late Model just about a month ago. We converted it to a Pro Late as well. That’s my family owned car.
I’m actually running an Outlaw Super Late Model this weekend, I drove another guy’s Pro Late, too. It’s been a different car about every weekend at this point. I’ve been staying in the seat quite a bit, which is nice, and I’ve got a lot of people that are helping me given the fact that we don’t have a full-time schedule. Really thankful to have those opportunities.
Folsom: Having the freedom to pick and choose what you want to focus on, has there been any fun in the freedom to go where you want to in a way?
Lapcevich: That may be a little part of it, but the best thing about [it] is there’s no pressure when we show up anywhere. Obviously, we want to win. When we show up to a racetrack we’re not gunning for second or third.
At the same time, we’re not points racing or anything like that. A lot of times we’re not even racing these guys the next weekend. We show up, there’s no pressure. I’m racing with the people that I grew up racing with again, a lot of the crew guys I had when I was 13-14 years old. We’re having a lot of fun doing it, that’s the cool piece about it.
There hasn’t been a time we’ve went to the racetrack and not had fun this year, whether it was a good night or not on the track. I’m working in the shop quite a lot with my brother and my dad, that stuff is fun too. It’s what I grew up doing, not that I wasn’t working in the shop last year but just doing it with my family again, that’s a special part of it.
We’ll be back soon with part two of this catch-up interview with Treyten Lapcevich. A link to the story will be shared here once it goes live.
Chase began working with Frontstretch in the spring of 2023 as a news writer, while also helping fill in for other columns as needed. Chase is now the main writer and reporter for Frontstretch.com's CARS Tour coverage, a role which began late in 2023. Aside from racing, some of Chase's other hobbies include time in the outdoors hunting and fishing, and keeping up with all things Philadelphia sports related.