For the 12th time in ARCA Menards Series history, Madison International Speedway will host the series for the Badger 200. It’s the first time the series has competed at the 0.5-mile Wisconsin short track since 2019. As a result, this race will be very competitive, according to ARCA Communications Manager Charles Krall.
“What you’ll see is a very competitive race with some of the drivers that we expect to see up front like Brenden Queen and Lawless Alan,” Krall told Frontstretch.” They will be joined by some new names who we haven’t seen race with us a lot, some because of age, like Tristan McKee. He’ll be competitive. You’ll see a good race. That is a neat racetrack with multiple grooves and a pretty good fanbase, so we will have a good show on Friday.”
Queen leads the driver point standings by 34 over Lavar Scott and his No. 28 Pinnacle Racing Group team leads the owner points by three ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18.
Queen leads the series with five wins. He scored his first ARCA short track victory at Iowa Speedway three races ago and won at 1-mile Dover Motor Speedway.
PRG is fielding its No. 82 Chevrolet for the third time this season and Austin Green already won piloting the No. 82. At Madison, it’ll be 15-year-old McKee making his first oval start in the series, his first of three starts with PRG.
McKee won his series debut two races ago at Watkins Glen International. PRG will have two fast Chevys at Madison.
“He’s had a lot of success in his oval track career prior to this race,” Krall added. “Just past 15 years old, he’s run some CARS Tour stuff and he’s had some success there. He’ll tell anybody who asks that, despite his road racing resume, that he is not a road racing guy. And lo and behold, he wins his first race on a road course. I’m anxious to see how he does.
“He’s in a second PRG car. That is arguably the best team in the series right now. JGR and Venturini might have something to say about that, certainly Nitro Motorsports would have something to say about that, but they lead the points, they’ve won with a couple of different drivers this year, Austin and Brenden. They were hands-on with that car at Watkins Glen, even though that was entered as a Spire Motorsports car. It’ll be very interesting to see how Tristan does in his first oval start. If he’s running up near the front, it’ll be interesting to see if it comes down to he and Brenden how they race each other. I look forward to seeing it.”
JGR has never won at Madison before, but the team has won three times this year and a series-high four runner-up results. Max Reaves will make his second straight start, and seventh overall in the ARCA series, in the JGR No. 18. Reaves, also only 15 years old, had his worst career finish in the ARCA platform in the series’ most recent race at the Illinois State Fairgrounds – sixth.
“He’s been strong in the ARCA Menards Series East, winning all three of his starts,” Krall noted. “He won almost out of the box there at Elko Speedway. He’s got Bobby Labonte as his mentor and driver coach. There are not enough superlatives to say about Bobby. A wonderful human being, a great driver and if I was a young driver who could randomly pick anybody to coach me through the ranks, Bobby would be at the top of that list. He is just unmatched, so maybe not that much of a surprise to see that Max has had that type of success knowing he’s got coaching from one of the all-time best drivers in the sport.”
PRG and JGR are first and second in the owner points and Queen leads the driver standings, but the most successful organization at Madison is Venturini. It has four wins there, including the last two in 2018-19 with Chandler Smith.
VMS has only won once this year with Alan at Talladega Superspeedway, but Krall does not believe the team’s trio of drivers – Alan, Mason Mitchell and Isabella Robusto – feel any additional pressure to win in VMS’ last year.
“Time is slipping through the hourglass, so to speak, but you’re not going to want to make Mason want to win any more than he already does,” Krall continued. “He’s a guy who is coming in after a long layoff and wants to reestablish himself as one of the best in the series. He came out of the box and had a very strong third-place run at Kansas Speedway and had high hopes going into his other races. He just hasn’t had the finishes that he wants and that is not deterring him from wanting to do this. It just makes him hungrier.
“You won’t find anyone in our garage area who wants to win more than Isabella or Lavar. Both have been knocking on the door for victory lane. You cannot put any more pressure on Isabella than she puts on herself.
“Lawless already has a win at Talladega and he wants to close his season out with multiple victories. There isn’t any added pressure to win, they already put a lot of pressure on themselves to want to get to victory lane.”
Scott made his 40th career start at the Springfield Mile and scored his third career second-place finish. Scott’s career stats are impressive with 24 top fives and 33 top 10s, but he remains winless and hungry to go to victory lane.
“He was as close as he has been all year at Springfield,” Krall said. “Drove one of the best races that I’ve seen him drive. Made some impressive passes, never put a wheel wrong all day long and I hope he’s able to bring that momentum with him from Springfield to Madison because that would be a big day for everybody if Lavar could pull it off.”
Scott finished second at Springfield to Brent Crews, who picked up the third win of the season for Nitro. The first-year organization welcomes Julian DaCosta for his series debut at Madison. DaCosta is not a newcomer to Nitro, though.
“He’s been with Nitro since he was a kid,” Krall explained. “He’s raced through their kart program, their TA2 program, and he and Nick Tucker have a long, successful relationship together. So, it may be a stretch to see him come out of the box and park it in victory lane in his very first race, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he did it. That team has been solid all season long. They’ve had some bad breaks along the way, but they’ve picked up wins with Brent, Treyten Lapcevich, and Thomas Annunziata. If you ask Tucker what his expectations were going into the season and now, he might say, ‘I’ve exceeded my expectations for the first year.’
“The thing with Nitro is they’re either in victory lane or they’re a little further back in seventh-ninth. They need to get that consistency. If they’re not in victory lane, they need to find a way to rack up those top-five finishes, but when you’ve won three times, it’s hard to say you’re doing anything wrong. They’ll be solid this week, but I’m interested to see how young Julian does.”
When Smith won in ’18 and ’19, he started from the pole. All eight Madison winners in this century have started inside the top 10, with five of the eight starting inside the top five. That’s consistent with this season, as all winners have started inside the top 10 with 13 of the 14 victors starting inside the top five. Five have started from the pole.
Krall made one prediction for the Badger 200: “It’ll be interesting to see if anyone can dethrone the Venturini team.”
The Badger 200 at Madison will take place on Friday, Aug. 22 at 9 p.m. ET with TV coverage provided by FOX Sports 1.
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.