It wasn’t pretty, but Gio Ruggiero emerged victorious in the ARCA Menards Series race at Kansas Speedway on Saturday, April 18.
He took advantage of a late caution, albeit one he caused, to erase Jack Wood’s lead. On the subsequent restart, Ruggiero grabbed the lead with an aggressive drive. A caution occurred behind him, involving Wood, sending the race into another overtime. Ruggiero prevailed by 0.019 seconds over Daniel Dye to score his second win in the 2026 season.
“Yeah, you just got to do whatever it takes to win,” Ruggiero told FOX Sports after climbing triumphantly out of his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. “That’s what I did. I mean, I thought we had a really strong car and I just couldn’t let these guys down and lose the race. My crew chief Matt Ross just had a baby, so needed to get him a nice gift with the win. So definitely executed on those last restarts. Just did whatever it took.”
The aforementioned caution, caused by Ruggiero, came when he spun Dystany Spurlock, who was running in 10th place.
“I was just trying to work lapped traffic really aggressive to, you know, catch the leaders or try to run them down,” Ruggiero said. “Really struggling with a loose balance. But just kind of misjudged it. I think she turned down. I’m not sure if she was trying to go to the top or the bottom, so just got to work on that stuff, but happy to get the win.”
Ruggiero scored his second win in both his ARCA national career and his 2026 ARCA campaign.
Dye finished second in his first race since he returned from his suspension.
Entering Kansas with the points lead, Jake Bollman finished third followed by his Nitro Motorsports teammate Gavan Boschele in fourth.
Lanie Buice earned her first top-five result by finishing in fifth.
Jason Kitzmiller, Jade Avedisian, Monty Tipton, Thomas Annunziata and Spurlock rounded out the top 10 in sixth through 10th, respectively, with the top-nine finishers on the lead lap.
The first 75 laps of the race were quite clean. Unfortunately, the final quarter saw some damaged racecars, beginning when the engine on Garrett Mitchell, AKA Cleetus McFarland’s, No. 30 Ford expired, collecting Andy Jankowiak and Isabella Robusto as well.
Mitchell finished 20th, but he and Carson Hocevar were still smiling when Mitchell spoke to FS1 following his release from the infield care center.
“Well, I mean, did you see that drift through the entire turn 1 and 2?” Mitchell said. “That was awesome. So, I mean, I’m looking forward to seeing that highlight reel of the baldeagle.com No. 30. I mean, overall, I had a blast. I made 77 laps so that’s pretty good. I mean, if I would’ve blown the motor at 50, I probably would’ve shed a tear. But I made over 75% of the race, so I’ll call it a win.”
“I thought he did good,” Hocevar added. “When I blew my motor, I wrecked so he did a good job. I just think we’ve been hanging out too much, where I’ve been trying to get you to race like me sometimes, but you don’t have to do everything to a T. And blowing motors is something I’ve been doing lately.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of pre-race advice from you,” Mitchell added. “Once at Daytona and then once here. I’ve been in single-car accidents both times. Well actually I didn’t crash.”
“I was going to say, when you rolled the top on the No. 70 down there,” Hocevar said. “I was so proud that you looked somewhat like you knew what you were doing and you’ve been here before.”
“When I turned my wheel, I went, ‘This is for Carson,” Mitchell continued. “And I turned in there on the wall and felt like Kyle Larson ripping the top. Probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done. And overall, you know, sad to be out but hopefully my sponsor … they don’t drop me cause it’s the coolest website ever.”
Mitchell finished 20th, Jankowiak in 21st and Robusto in 22nd, all with DNFs.
Of the trio, Robusto is the only full timer, and she now has two wrecks in three races, not indicative of her performance piloting her No. 55 Toyota.
“Yeah, I mean, we kind of got the car where we needed to on that last exchange,” Robusto said after she left the infield care center. “Just racing hard, trying to get back up in position that we lost kind of at the start of the race. But, super thankful … we definitely started on the back half of the race but I think we were getting to a pretty good spot there. I think Cleetus’ motor just blew up and kind of wrong spot at the wrong time. Tried to turn down from the oil, but it just didn’t work out and ended up in the wall. So we’ll look forward to Talladega. It’s one of my favorite racetracks so see you there next weekend.”
The next caution came for the incident involving Ruggiero and Spurlock. On the subsequent restart, after Ruggiero took the lead, Boschele wrecked Wood on the backstretch as they raced hard for position.
In the third overtime, the field stayed clean, and Ruggiero held onto the lead, giving his Joe Gibbs Racing team two wins in the first three ARCA races.
ARCA Results from Kansas
The ARCA field is back in action in one week at Talladega Superspeedway. That race will take place on Saturday, April 25, at 12:30 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.
Cheap shot by gio, gutless where nascar and arca officials should be disqualified maybe dystany play demo derby with goo and turn him next time