Toledo Speedway hosts the ARCA Menards Series and ARCA Menards Series in a combination race on Saturday, May 16. The 0.5-mile short track will be the site for the Owens Corning 200, and 30 drivers are entered, the most since 2015.
Joe Gibbs Racing and Pinnacle Racing Group are the top two teams in both series. The JGR No. 18 leads the owner standings in the national division, with the PRG No. 28 in second, while in the East, the PRG No. 77 leads the JGR entry.
Fittingly, JGR and PRG went 1-2-3 in the most recent ARCA race at Toledo, the 2025 season finale. Max Reaves won the race, ’25 main-series champion Brenden Queen finished second and current East points leader Tristan McKee was third.
Reaves won the pole and led 199 of the 200 laps to win in his lone start at Toledo. Furthermore, his No. 18 team has won five straight times at Toledo. Yes, Reaves is the favorite. He also won the most recent East race this season and is second in points, trailing McKee by seven.
McKee won the first two East races this season, quickly succeeding with new crew chief Kevin Reed Jr. Reed has served as a crew chief for the last four Toledo races, and his drivers have accrued two top fives and four top 10s in that timespan, topped by Gio Ruggiero’s second-place run in 2024.
McKee’s PRG teammate Carson Brown leads the national division in laps led, highlighted by a dominant win at Phoenix Raceway. Brown will make his first ARCA start at Toledo, but he has experience there. He competed in the ASA Stars National Tour event at Toledo last year, finishing sixth. His crew chief Steven Dawson served as Queen’s crew chief last year, so Brown will be fast.
Outside of JGR and Pinnacle, Nitro Motorsports is eager to crash the party and win. After all, the past two ARCA victors were not JGR or PRG drivers. The last time three straight races were won by drivers other than those from those two organizations came in 2023, when Venturini Motorsports pilot Jesse Love reeled off four straight triumphs.
Nitro is VMS’ successor and the four-car team is chasing its first trophy of 2026.
Thomas Annunziata, Jake Bollman and Wesley Slimp are all visiting Toledo for the first time. Bollman leads the main-series points, Annunziata is 22 points back in fourth, and Slimp’s No. 25 Toyota is eighth in the main series owners’ points.
In nine short track starts in his ARCA Menards Series West stint last year, Bollman accrued one top five, three top fives, six top 10s, and led 198 laps. While he has yet to lead a lap this year, Bollman should have the No. 20 Toyota up front.
Annunziata will make his second ARCA short track start. His first came last season at Bristol, where he started 11th and finished sixth. He also has four NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series short track starts. Like McKee, Annunziata’s crew chief is also a former Venturini crew chief Shannon Rursch. While Rursch has been to Toledo many times, he has never gone to victory lane, with some second-place results, most recently with Love in ’23.
Wesley Slimp is more of a wild card. He has one short track start, in the East race at Rockingham where he wound up fifth. Still, with Nitro’s resources, Slimp ought to be in contention for a top-five finish.
Isabella Robusto is the most experienced at Toledo of the Nitro quartet, albeit with her lone start there last season. She started sixth and finished fourth. Her crew chief Glenn Parker is a veteran in the garage too, which should benefit her. In her 15-race ARCA platform short track tenure, Robusto has 10 top fives, 11 top 10s, and 59 laps led. Not only would her winning at Toledo be historic, but it would also make for an incredible storyline of winning at the series’ home track.
Caden Kvapil will make his series debut driving the No. 24 for Sigma Performance Services. The team was fifth in the ’25 Toledo event, and crew chief Blake Bainbridge led Daniel Dye during his runner-up points campaign in 2022. Dye was in top-10 contention in that ’22 Toledo race before a mechanical woe cost him that finish.
Kvapil, meanwhile, leads the zMAX CARS Tour Late Model Stock points, and he has been to Toledo before. In that ’25 ASA Stars race, he had an eighth-place result.
While Bollman leads the driver points, Ryan Vargas is second, 12 points back, with Andy Jankowiak in third, 14 behind the leader.
Neither expected to be full time, but as a quarter of the season is complete, things have changed for Jankowiak.
Jankowiak has two Toledo starts, with one top 10, seventh in the 2023 event. In his eight-race national division short track resume, he has one top five and five top 10s. Yes, more funding obviously is needed, but another stout performance from Jankowiak will continue to make it harder for KLAS Motorsports to end its championship quest.
Vargas was already slated to run the majority of the season for Maples Motorsports. Frontstretch sources have indicated that MMS will likely continue to field Vargas as long as he stays in the points hunt. The Maples No. 91 is also fourth in owners’ points with two top 10s.
Admittedly, while I said he was one to watch in the series test at Daytona International Speedway, Vargas has impressed me too. Vargas is making his Toledo debut, though MMS fielded two entries there last year, albeit not on the lead lap. Pencil Vargas in for a top-10 result. Hot take though: if there is attrition, which seems higher with 30 entries at this short track, Vargas could be in line for a top five.
Who will go to victory lane, though? We will find out on Saturday, the 16th, when the field takes the green flag at 7 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.