After 19 races all around the country, the ARCA Menards Series has reached its final race weekend of the year.
Teams will head to the Toledo Speedway — right in ARCA’s backyard — this Saturday (Oct. 4) afternoon, and a champion will be crowned for the 2025 season.
Look back at this past weekend’s race at Kansas Speedway, and it was Brenden Queen who found victory lane for the eighth time this season. Queen didn’t lead as much of the race as he has in previous wins, but he held off late charges from Gio Ruggiero and Leland Honeyman on a pair of late-race restarts to take the checkered flag.
The series’ second trip to Kansas this season provided much intrigue and excitement on track, but how will the drivers stack up in this week’s edition of the Frontstretch ARCA Power Rankings?
1. Brenden Queen
Who else would top this list besides eventual champion Brenden “Butterbean” Queen? From the get-go this season, Queen has been the car to beat and has kept that pace week in and week out. He’s had eight trips to victory lane, including the season opener at Daytona International Speedway that set the tone for his season to come. The Virginia native has only finished outside of the top four three times this season, and he will be crowned series champion upon taking the green flag at Toledo.
Kansas was very kind to the 27-year-old ARCA rookie. He led 35 laps, started from the pole and ran inside of the top three for the entire race. Queen had taken the white flag, but an incident involving Andy Jankowiak further back racked the field up for a one-lap shootout. After executing a near flawless restart, Queen held off Ruggiero and won.
Queen doesn’t need to win at Toledo; he only needs to start the race to take home the championship. However, as successful as short tracks have been for the driver of the No. 28 this season, he’ll surely be a threat Saturday afternoon.
2. Lavar Scott
Lavar Scott has unofficially locked himself into yet another runner-up finish in the season-long ARCA standings. He sits 85 points back of Queen, a nearly impossible gap to close in one week, and almost 100 points ahead of Jason Kitzmiller, who sits third. Through 45 career races, it’s been well documented that Scott has yet to find victory lane, but his time in ARCA has still seen its fair share of success. Scott only has two DNFs in his career, and he’s had only nine career finishes outside of the top 10. He might not have a trophy on his mantle yet, but his presence has been felt all season long in each of the last two years.
This past weekend’s trip to the Heartland didn’t treat Scott very well, though. The speed was not lacking, as the Rev Racing driver qualified eighth and was running similarly before a tire failure took him out of the race prematurely. The 25th-place result wasn’t indicative of the day nor the season for Scott, who now looks to complete his second ARCA season at Toledo.
Heading to Toledo, Scott has just one previous race there in his career, coming in last year’s season finale. He finished fifth in that race but has done well on similar short tracks this season, recording top fives at both Salem Speedway and Indianapolis Raceway Park. Scott has seemingly found a new level of consistency since his pair of NASCAR Xfinity Series starts with Alpha Prime Racing and will have one last shot to break through with a victory in 2025 this weekend.
3. Leland Honeyman
Honeyman didn’t start this season running ARCA. In fact, he didn’t make his first start of the season in the series until the 17th race on the schedule at Bristol Motor Speedway. However, in his brief time in the series after taking over for Lawless Alan, Honeyman has been a consistent threat. He has recorded three top-four finishes in three races, picking up where Alan had left off in the No. 20 all season long.
Honeyman enjoyed a quietly competitive night in Kansas on Friday evening. He finished where he started, third, and didn’t lead any laps. However, that third-place running position was one that he didn’t give up much in the race, running most of the event well inside of the top five. He had a pair of shots on the late race restarts, but with Queen nailing each of those, a third-place finish is what he had to settle for.
Looking ahead, it’s not entirely clear when we’ll see Honeyman in ARCA again. He’s not expected to run the season finale at Toledo, and he has established himself as a consistent presence in the Xfinity Series over the last few seasons. If that’s the last Honeyman sees of ARCA, his last taste of the series was about as good as he could ask for.
4. Isabella Robusto
Isabella Robusto’s season has been the tale of two halves. The first five races of the season did not go the way the 20-year-old driver had anticipated, working through a plethora of incidents and mechanical issues that were largely outside of her own doing. After race six at Michigan International Speedway, though, Robusto turned a new leaf. She’s finished outside the top five just six times over that span, and outside the top 10 just twice. The two outliers are the Illinois State Fairgrounds, where she endured an early incident and Bristol, where the mechanical gremlins resurfaced.
Kansas was a show of consistency for Robusto, much like the series’ first trip to the track in May. In both races, Robusto ran at the back half of the top 10 for much of the race, but she was caught up in a late incident the first time around. In September, however, she avoided the late race accident and was able to record a solid 10th-place finish.
Much like a good number of her competitors, Robusto has never run a race at Toledo in her career. She sits 13 points behind Kitzmiller in the season standings for third place, and will not be caught by the stagnant Alan, who’s currently fourth. Short tracks have treated the driver of the No. 55 well all season long, with a number of her top-five finishes coming on tracks under a mile in length.
5. Jason Kitzmiller
Though he’s already announced that 2026 will be his last full-time season, Kitzmiller has largely exceeded expectations in his first full year in 2025. Despite not having an abundance of experience in heavier stock cars on tracks that require off-throttle and braking, Kitzmiller has adapted to smaller tracks very well. Despite only recording two top-five finishes, both coming early in the year, Kitzmiller has only finished outside of the top 10 six times, one of which came at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he didn’t start the race to attend his daughter’s graduation.
The driver of the No. 97 did what he’s done best all season long on Friday at Kansas, finishing ninth and recording yet another solid top-10 finish. He’s finished inside the top 10 on every tri-oval start he’s made this season, excluding the Charlotte race where he was credited with a 32nd-place finish. He sits third in the season-long standings, about 20 points ahead of fourth-place Robusto. That guarantees him a season-long result of no worse than fourth in the standings.
Looking ahead to Toledo and beyond, Kitzmiller has already stated he’ll be back with his son Isaac in 2026. He’s never run a race at Toledo, but has run very consistently at the back end of the top 10 throughout most of the short track races on the schedule throughout 2025.
Paint Scheme of the Week
When racing under the lights, the ultimate goal for every team is to have their car stand out more than their competitors. After all, nighttime racing has an illustrious feel to it, and to have a car that matches that feel is extra special.
As such, this week’s paint scheme of the week will go to Wayne Peterson Racing and Brayton Laster’s No. 06 Ford Fusion. The team brought a glow-in-the-dark green and black race car to Kansas, sponsored by K.C. Arborist Tree Care. The glow in the dark aspect was wrapped in a Menards parking lot, Laster announced on Twitter, while the team was doing a weekly appearance.
The season finale race at Toledo will be the standard one-day show for ARCA. Teams will practice at 11:45 a.m. ET on Saturday morning and will qualify shortly after at 1 p.m. ET. The green flag for the Owens Corning 200 will fly shortly after 4 p.m., with the race broadcast airing on FOX Sports 2.
Josh joined Frontstretch in 2023 and currently covers the ARCA Menards Series. Born and raised in Missouri, Josh has been watching motorsports since 2005. He currently is studying for a Mass Communication degree at Lindenwood University