For the second time this season the ARCA Menards Series is slated to make left and right turns, heading Lime Rock Park.
Friday’s (July 10) race at the 1.5-mile road course marks the second time the series has visited the track, with the first coming last season. However, the ARCA Menards Series East ran 18 races at the track from 1993 to 2010 prior to becoming merged under the ARCA umbrella.
Last year’s running saw 24 cars ripping around the Connecticut road course, so this year’s entry list of 29 marks a significant improvement in car count.
The 2025 race was won by Thomas Annunziata, marking his only ARCA win to date. Three different drivers led over 15 laps, with Alon Day and Lawless Alan joining Annunziata in that regard.
Neither Alan nor Day are entered in this year’s race, but Annunziata is. Lime Rock marks the 21-year-old’s best chance of the season to find victory lane. He has shown vast improvement on ovals, especially short tracks, but Annunziata comes from a strong road racing background. He’s run five ARCA races on road courses, only finishing outside of the top five once, a seventh place finish at Watkins Glen International in 2024. In addition to his win last season, he has two other ARCA podium finishes on road courses.
Annunziata’s biggest competition this weekend will likely come in the form of 15-year-old Tristan McKee. He also comes from a road racing background, and has found victory lane in the series on that style of track, winning at Watkins Glen in 2025. The Pinnacle Racing Group driver ran well at WGI this year, but finished 18th after some mechanical gremlins came about late in the going. While brief, McKee’s ARCA career as a whole to this point is extremely impressive. He’s run 11 races, and finished fourth or better in nine of them.Â
Nitro Motorsports will bring four other cars to the race track this weekend, in addition to Annunziata. Isabella Robusto and Jake Bollman will run their typical No. 55 and No. 20, and Will Robinson and Peter Portante will pilot the No. 15 and No. 25, respectively.Â
Bollman enters the race as the points leader, with a 16-point buffer over Annunziata. However, road racing is not something he’s abundantly used to. He never ran at either of the road races on the West schedule, and only has two career TransAm races under his belt. The bright side however, is that he finished inside of the top 10 at Watkins Glen earlier this season despite this, and one of those TransAm races came at Lime Rock back in May.
Robusto’s road course history is incredibly consistent. Across the three levels of ARCA, she’s contested four career road course races, and finished inside of the top 10 in each of them. However, she’s only once finished inside of the top five, a third place at Portland International Raceway out West in 2024. She enters 59 points behind the points lead, coming off of a sixth place run at Watkins Glen the last time out on a road course.
The duo of Robinson and Portante bring a bit more of an unknown to the race. Both come from road racing backgrounds, and can be considered ringers, but neither have extensive ARCA history. Robinson has a pair of West starts and one national division with Nitro this season, though he only recorded one top 10 finish. Portante is local to Lime Rock, growing up just over an hour away. He won a F2000 race at the track back in 2023, and will be making his ARCA debut Friday.
McKee will have Carson Brown as a teammate this week, with the 17-year-old returning to the seat of the No. 28 for the first time since Pocono Raceway. He’s run exceptionally well in his four starts this season, winning at Phoenix Raceway in March, and finishing inside of the top three in each of the other three races. Brown exceeded expectations at Watkins Glen, finishing runner up despite not having an abundance of prior starts on road course tracks.
A pair of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series drivers will run double duty this weekend, both making their 2026 ARCA debuts, and both driving for Cook Racing Technologies. Stewart Friesen and Dawson Sutton will drive the No. 17 and No. 42 respectively Friday afternoon. Sutton has one previous ARCA start, coming back in 2024 with Hettinger Racing at Bristol Motor Speedway. He finished 33rd that night. Stewart Friesen has never run an ARCA race in his career, despite being a full-time Truck regular now for the better part of 10 years.Â
Don’t count out Ryan Gemmell this weekend, as he returns to the NEMCO Motorsports No. 29, as has become customary for him on the road courses. Gemmell and team owner Joe Nemechek just returned from France, competing at Le Mans in the Historical Stock Car Series race at the famed race track.
Looking stateside, and at ARCA specifically, the 25-year-old Gemmell has competed in four career races, never finishing outside of the top 10. He ran ninth at Watkins Glen the last time the series made right turns, but earned his best finish, a top five, last year at Lime Rock Park.
Max Reaves returns to the Joe Gibbs Racing seat after missing the event at Chicagoland Speedway due to age. His last time out, he won at Elko Speedway after starting at the rear due to engine issues. Reaves, like many of his young counterparts, is newer to road racing, but has begun to make starts in TransAm TA2 races on off weeks. He only has one previous ARCA start on a road course, finishing eighth earlier this season at Watkins Glen. While he may not be the favorite for the win he’s become accustomed to, it’s very likely the No. 18 will spend its fair share of time inside of the top five Friday.
Andy Jankowiak will run back-to-back races for the first time since ending his full-time pursuit, contesting one of his home racetracks for the first time in his career. Jankowiak returned to ARCA after three races off last week at Chicagoland, finishing seventh. Road course racing isn’t new to Jankowiak, running six career races at Watkins Glen, but he’s only finished inside of the top 10 once, back in 2025.Â
CR7 Motorsports will have the father-son duo of Jason and Isaac Kitzmiller entered in this week’s race, doing so for the first time since Pocono last month. Neither driver has had much success at road courses in their ARCA careers. Isaac has one career start, finishing 30th at Watkins Glen back in early May. Jason, on the other hand, has three career starts, with a best finish of 17th, also coming at The Glen. Jason currently sits fourth in ARCA standings, 69 points behind Annunziata, and 10 behind Robusto for third.
Ty Fredrickson will make his third career ARCA start Friday afternoon, but his first outside of Elko, and his first for a team that isn’t Nitro Motorsports. Fredrickson will climb behind the wheel of the No. 91 for Maples Motorsports this week, replacing Morgen Baird who drove it most recently at Chicagoland.
There is perhaps no road ringer entered in this week’s race more accomplished than Andrew Ranger. The 39-year-old Canadian driver made road course starts in all three of NASCAR’s top three divisions from 2008 to 2014, and has been full time in the Canadian Series since 2007. Ranger is a four time ARCA winner, taking home the checkered flag in four consecutive races at New Jersey Motorsports Park from 2011 to 2014, and he finished seventh in his return to the series earlier this season at Watkins Glen.Â
Friday’s race at Lime Rock Park will, again, be a one day show for ARCA teams. An hour long practice session will kick off at 1 p.m. ET, with qualifying set to follow shortly after at 2:15. The green flag for the Lime Rock Park 100 will fly at 4 p.m. ET, with the race being broadcast live 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
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