In the latest court filing of the NASCAR vs. 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports antitrust lawsuit, NASCAR made a bold statement about the ARCA Menards Series.
It called it “tiny.”
Remember, NASCAR acquired ARCA in 2018 and took control over the series in 2020.
Understandably, court dealings are often contentious — look at the amount of celebrity divorces that make the tabloids — but calling ARCA tiny and the subsequent language in the filing?
Wow, that says a lot.
In baseball terminology, ARCA is Class A, which is OK. The series was founded in 1953 and operates three divisions — ARCA national, ARCA Menards Series East and West — today.
First, let’s unpack how NASCAR described ARCA in the filing.
“Far from seeking to deter ARCA, NASCAR invited ARCA to race at Daytona beginning in 1964 and provided loans to keep ARCA afloat,” the filing read. “As ARCA’s owner [Ron Drager] described, he approached NASCAR because he feared ARCA would soon fail. Plaintiffs present ‘no intent, plans or capabilities to enter the market’ by ARCA as a competitor to the Cup Series, and all evidence is to the opposite.”
All of that is true. Drager said as much when he spoke about the state of the series in 2021.
The last sentence acts as an indirect shot at 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin. Hamlin, who has a whole two ARCA starts, blasted the series last year, causing quite a stir.
Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs Racing, Hamlin’s employer in the NASCAR Cup Series, fields an incredibly successful ARCA organization. Hamlin’s teammates Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs all were successful in ARCA, with Briscoe and Gibbs each winning a championship.
Hamlin, on the other hand, took a shot at the series and has never furthered any involvement or knowledge about the series. For example, several Cup drivers have served as guest announcers for ARCA races; Hamlin has not.
NASCAR continued to argue why 23XI/FRM were wrong in their argument about ARCA.
“Plaintiffs go to desperate lengths to bolster ARCA’s significance, but still fail,” the document continues. “First, they claim Jim France conceded that ARCA was a ‘close competitor,’ but he actually said he would not ‘look at it that way.’ (‘ARCA is and has never been a realistic competitor to NASCAR Cup Series Racing.’). Next, Plaintiffs claim ARCA signed a ‘national’ television deal with FOX pre-acquisition. Wrong again. ARCA signed a deal with FS1 for [redacted amount] annually. ARCA was not ‘aired on network television’ until 2025, after NASCAR kept it afloat during the pandemic.”
Truthfully, ARCA has never been a direct competitor to Cup. For years, its races at Pocono Raceway and Sonoma Raceway served as the opening act for the Cup race weekend and its season opener at Daytona International Speedway was paired with the Cup exhibition Clash.
2025 has been an improvement for ARCA. It re-signed its entitlement sponsorship with Menards, re-signed its broadcast packages with FOX Sports and FloRacing, and its season opener at Daytona aired on FOX — yes, big FOX.
But if NASCAR disrespects ARCA by calling it tiny, and in its sixth year of overseeing ARCA, it’s worth asking: does NASCAR care about ARCA?
It’s a mixed bag.
Yes, NASCAR cares about ARCA. It has many companion races with the series, from Daytona to Talladega Superspeedway to Iowa Speedway, among others.
Presumably, NASCAR aided ARCA in its latest corporate extensions. During the companion race weekends, ARCA has NASCAR TV pit reporters, teams get pit stalls, and some garage space.
NASCAR also helps ARCA with its social media, it promotes ARCA to an extent on its NASCAR Regional accounts and NASCAR’s acquisition of the series has arguably led to more media coverage of the series.
Since 2020, a number of young, talented drivers have begun their racing careers in ARCA and then graduated to the NASCAR national levels.
That list includes Gibbs, Corey Heim, Jesse Love and Connor Zilisch, all of whom have made Cup starts this year.
Lower in the ranks, Nick Sanchez, Sammy Smith, William Sawalich, Tanner Gray and Taylor Gray all won in ARCA and then moved into the NASCAR national series.
There are more graduates too, with points leader Brenden Queen possibly the next one. He has shown his talents are ready for a promotion into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
All of which is to say, ARCA has been a top feeder series for NASCAR’s national circuits; it likely has somewhat of a vested interest in keeping that pipeline going.
However, ARCA continues to have its challenges, and unless NASCAR steps in, it’s questionable whether ARCA will overcome those to grow as a developmental series.
The number one problem within ARCA is the money. It’s simply not there.
For example, Austin Hull won $40,000 in a super late model race at Berlin Raceway that aired on FloRacing. Treyten Lapcevich won $5,000 in the ARCA race there that aired on FOX Sports 1.
Underdog owner/driver Alex Clubb commented on his team’s Facebook post, “I started doing this part time and then crunched the numbers and started doing rentals. Since 2022 our team has sustained its self off of rentals, sponsors and race/ year-end payouts. Luckily we’ve not had to invest our own money since 2022.”
It’s great that Clubb Racing Inc. has been self-sustaining, and Clubb is a smart businessman for that, but the team’s results are still lacking. In 2025, Clubb, driving his No. 03, has two top 10s but zero lead-lap finishes. In fact, in his 80-race career, he has one such result. The second CRI entry, the No. 86, is 18th in owner points, last of the full-time entries, and has zero top 10s.
CRI and Clubb are hard working. They overcame an auto accident after Iowa to compete at Watkins Glen International, and Clubb scored a top 10 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.
But unless race purses and the end-of-year purse are increased, how is Clubb supposed to improve his organization? He lacks manufacturer support, doesn’t have a big-dollar sponsor and his pay drivers are informed that they likely won’t be contending for top 10s, much less run up front.
Unless you’re a pay driver with a large checkbook, why would you run in ARCA? The Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway sees drivers DNQ annually. The ARCA East race there this year had 21 cars, and that was the most this century.
Bubba Pollard, Stephen Nasse and other drivers attract fans to come to short track races. Who attracts fans to come to ARCA races?
Garrett Mitchell, aka Cleetus McFarland, attracted fans, but he’s only run three races and declined an invitation to participate in the ARCA race at Salem Speedway.
At least ARCA is on TV, often in conjunction with NASCAR race weekends, sometimes the opening act.
Yes … except the series harms itself with its races airing simultaneously as NASCAR national races.
Tomorrow (Friday, Aug. 22), the NASCAR Xfinity Series races at Daytona at 7:30 p.m. ET. ARCA races at Madison International Speedway at 9. The two races will overlap. Unless you’re a diehard ARCA fan, live near Madison or, like yours truly, are covering the race, you’re more likely to watch the Xfinity race.
In two weeks, as Cup races in its historic Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, ARCA will race that same night at DuQuoin State Fairgrounds. ARCA will also go head-to-head, in its season finale at Toledo Speedway, with the Xfinity race also ongoing at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL.
In stick-and-ball sports, multiple sports have games airing concurrently. But NASCAR doesn’t have its national series compete against each other … except for ARCA.
Does NASCAR care? Obviously not. NASCAR doesn’t have any dirt track races, so the industry arguably doesn’t care about the ARCA race at DuQuoin. And because all NASCAR national series will be at the ROVAL, you won’t see any NASCAR stars participate at Toledo.
That’s a shame, especially when NASCAR is reconsidering the limit on Cup drivers participating in Xfinity and Truck races.
ARCA has other issues to be reevaluated, such as its end-of-race procedures, restrictive pit road rules and post-race inspection failure penalties. Those can be fixed by ARCA itself.
But unless NASCAR steps in to help ARCA with its purses, TV broadcast times and relevancy of its races, ARCA will remain “tiny” in the eyes of the industry.
That’s a shame when the series is supposed to be the first step for future NASCAR stars.
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.