The offseason has officially ended for the ARCA Menards Series, as teams will return to the track to begin the 2026 season.
Fifty drivers are entered for the season opener at Daytona International Speedway, competing for 40 spots on the starting grid. It’s par for the course over the past two years, as the 2025 race had 46 entrants and the 2024 edition had 50.
Nitro Motorsports kicks off its first year as the primary Toyota development team with six entries on the racetrack. Full-timers Jake Bollman, Thomas Annunziata and Isabella Robusto will be joined by Jake Finch, Wesley Slimp and Gus Dean for the 200-mile race on Feb. 14.
Annunziata enters his first full-time season as the favorite to win the championship title. Pack racing isn’t new to him, having run two previous events in ARCA in 2024. He finished runner-up at Daytona in the season opener that season.
Robusto also has two drafting-style races under her belt, finishing third at Talladega Superspeedway last April and 21st in last year’s season opener after wrecking from the top five halfway through the race. Robusto’s 2025 season was very much the tale of two halves, finishing outside the top 10 in four of the first five races before rattling off a 15-race streak in which she scored 13 top-10 finishes.
Bollman enters the season as a wild card. His full-time status wasn’t announced until after the Daytona test. He also has yet to compete full-time at any ARCA level, running just over half of the ARCA Menards Series West schedule in 2025 with one win and three top fives in seven starts. Outside of the combination race at Phoenix Raceway the last two seasons, Bollman has never run a standalone national ARCA race, and will visit most of the tracks on the schedule for the first time this season.
Slimp, Dean and Finch make up a trio of drivers with varying experience at the ARCA level. Slimp has never contested an ARCA race and has only two NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts, both on road courses. Finch and Dean are both former winners on drafting-style tracks, with Dean winning the 2024 season opener driving for Venturini Motorsports. As for Finch, he found victory lane at Talladega in 2024, leading all the laps too.
Sticking with Toyotas, Joe Gibbs Racing will have Max Reaves piloting the No. 18 for most of the season. However, due to his age, Reaves can’t run at Daytona, so the team tapped Gio Ruggiero to run the season opener. Ruggiero will be busy this weekend, running the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race Saturday (Feb. 14) as well as his full-time effort with TRICON Garage in the Truck Series starting Friday evening (Feb. 13). Ruggiero has never run an ARCA race on a superspeedway, but won the Truck Series race at Talladega last season.
Maples Motorsports will debut a fresh look to its team at Daytona, bringing four cars to the track, all full time.
Michael Maples will remain the driver of his No. 99, and Tony Cosentino will pilot the team’s No. 1 full time. Ryan Vargas will drive the No. 91 as an anchor driver, starting this weekend at Daytona, and Greg Van Alst will be behind the wheel of the No. 19. It’s a very solid driver lineup for the freshly-expanded organization.
Van Alst is a former winner at Daytona, winning the season-opening race in 2023, driving for his own team, but did not run at any level of ARCA in 2025. Vargas carries a very deep racing resume into the team, running as high as the O’Reilly Series and also having experience in Europe, Canada and even Monster Jam.
Cosentino has created a knack for himself, getting solid results out of mid-tier equipment, finishing inside the top 10 three times last year driving for Fast Track Racing. He’s run both Daytona and Talladega once, both in 2023 for his own team. He recorded two top-15 finishes in those races, though he did not participate in the preseason test. Maples himself has struggled on the drafting-style tracks, never finishing inside the top 20 in four starts over the last two years.
Pinnacle Racing Group, fresh off the driver and owners championships with Queen in 2025, has a different look in 2026. The team has expanded to two full-time cars, the flagship No. 28 and the new No. 77. The team will also have a slew of new drivers behind the wheel, with Jack Wood and Taylor Reimer in the Nos. 28 and 77, respectively.
Wood has run ARCA part time each year since 2021. He has two previous top-10 finishes at Daytona, though he has yet to make a start with PRG.
Reimer carries a different experience level into Daytona, having only made one career start on a track larger than a mile in length. That came at Kansas Speedway last September, where she finished fifth. Despite a smaller track record, Reimer has yet to finish outside the top 10 in ARCA national division competition in six starts and will look to expand on that in championship-level equipment.
Rette-Jones Racing will bring a pair of cars to the racetrack with Garrett Mitchell, ‘Cleetus McFarland’, and Kole Raz piloting the Nos. 30 and No. 76, respectively. Raz’s entry will be run in conjunction with Wayne Peterson Motorsports, using the No. 0 owner points from 2025.
McFarland now enters his second year of part-time ARCA competition and will couple Saturday’s race with a Truck Series start for Niece Motorsports on Friday. McFarland finished 30th at the season-opening race last season, but did put together a top-10 run at similarly-styled Talladega last April. McFarland will also contest this race with a heavy heart, as it’s his first ARCA start since losing mentor and friend Greg Biffle.
Raz started off his 2025 season very hot, finishing sixth in back-to-back races at Daytona and Phoenix. However, he only attempted five races and none after Michigan International Speedway in June. He returns to the series in the No. 76, looking to match his near top-five effort in 2025.
Mini Tyrrell will make his ARCA debut Saturday for Cook Racing Technologies driving the No. 17. This comes as a formality, but also as valuable seat time for the RAM: Race for the Seat winner. Tyrrell has no experience on the high-banked drafting tracks and will be thrown into both Daytona and Talladega, as well as Atlanta Motor Speedway, throughout his full-time Truck effort this season. The connection to Cook comes quite simply; his ARCA team owner Bruce Cook is also his Truck Series crew chief at Kaulig Racing.
Speaking of RAM, Sigma Performance Services will bring its No. 24 to Daytona with another Kaulig Truck driver, Daniel Dye. It’s been a while since Dye has seen the ARCA ranks, last competing in 2022 during his full-time season with GMS Racing. Dye will also run the O’Reilly Auto Parts race after ARCA Saturday, joining Ruggiero as one of a handful of drivers to run three races at Daytona this weekend.
KLAS Racing will bring two cars to the racetrack with Glen Reen driving the No. 07 and a familiar face, Andy Jankowiak, behind the wheel of the renumbered No. 71.
Jankowiak is no stranger to ARCA at Daytona, and his previous runs at the track have been quite successful. He’s run the season opener five times now and has finished in the top 10 in four of them, with the lone outlier a 32nd-place finish in 2023. Reen carries less experience, with his only previous ARCA races coming on road courses. He has some experience in the NOAPS last season, but all of his starts came on tracks smaller than a mile in length.
Jason Kitzmiller returns to the ARCA ranks for a second, and final, full-time season in 2026. After finishing third in points in 2025, he’ll look to carry a full season of experience into 2026. That kicks off with a drafting-style race track at Daytona, which is easily Kitzmiller’s strength. He finished in the top five at Daytona and Talladega last year, his best finishes all season. He is on a streak of back-to-back top-10 finishes at Daytona and will look to expand on that streak Saturday. Kitzmiller is also entered in Friday’s Craftsman Truck Series race, driving his familiar No. 97 for CR7 Motorsports.
This weekend’s General Tire 200 at Daytona will be a three-day show. Teams will have 50 minutes of practice on Thursday, starting at 4 p.m. ET. On Friday, teams will participate in group qualifying at 1:30 p.m. ET, sending 10 cars home. On race day on Saturday, the green flag will fly at noon ET with the race broadcast on FOX.
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