Hunter Wright Continuing to Chase His Dream in ARCA

Hunter Wright is looking to make a name for himself as he climbs through the grassroots ranks in racing. At Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Wright made his first ARCA national series start of the 2026 season and he finished 12th. He drove the No. 95 for MAN Motorsports, which is also fielding Jackson McLerran full time in the ARCA Menards Series East.

Our own Kevin Nix spoke with Wright before the race at IRP to talk about why he runs ARCA, McLerran, and barriers that prevent more late model drivers from moving up to compete in ARCA.

Kevin Nix, Frontstretch: Hunter, let’s start from the beginning. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Hunter Wright: I grew up in Gladeville, Tenn., and have been racing pro late models for five or six years with my current late model owner, Wayne Day, and I’ve been having a lot of fun doing that.

Obviously, we know Mark Noble through the local connection, as he lives and runs his team in the Lebanon area, which is close to where I’m from, so that’s how that relationship started. I’m here racing with him this weekend, so I’m very fortunate and grateful to be here doing that.

Nix: What got you to ARCA? Why run ARCA, because you’ve been running some one-offs?

Wright: Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s different. Obviously, anything different or new is a lot of fun. The cars are a lot different to drive. They’re a lot harder to drive. Maybe some of the ones that are competing for wins aren’t quite as hard to drive, but they’re a lot of fun.

They’re something different when it comes to building, setting them up, and driving them as well. It’s just all different. Anything new and different is fun to me and something that I enjoy.

Nix: How excited are you to come back to IRP because you raced here last year?

Wright: I’m excited. We went back to Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, which was when we returned to a track for the first time. So, to be back here is a lot of fun.

We had a decent run last year; we didn’t get to qualify, so I had to start in the deep 20s. We finished ninth, which for us at a national race is pretty good, but hopefully this year we can move up a few more spots and be competing for a top five.

Nix: Your teammate Jackson McLerran is running full-time ARCA East. How does he impress you? How has he grown as a racecar driver? What’s he like as a teammate?

Wright: I’ve been going with him and crew-chiefing in the ARCA car, helping set the car up for him as well, and he’s doing a good job.

He’s learning a lot. He didn’t have much racing experience before he started with ARCA. So for him, it was a tough, steep learning curve, right from where he started and having to race other cars. He’s really good at taking the car and getting what he can get out of it as far as speed goes, and now he’s getting to where he can compete and race around other cars as well. So he’s doing a good job; he’s come a long way.

Nix: How long has your working relationship been with him?

Wright: I’ve known Jackson for roughly five years and been working with him off and on all the way throughout that.

Nix: I imagine it’s really cool to see his growth just as a racecar driver; you can see he’s getting better.

Wright: Yeah, absolutely he is. I was fortunate enough to start racing really young and have run a lot of races to this point, so I’ve been able to help him out some along the way as much as I can. The biggest thing is helping him on the car side, helping them try to get the setup closer to what they need and whatever else.

So that’s been fun, and going and working with him at the racetrack is something different than just going and driving. So it’s all been a lot of fun and it’s been cool to see Jackson progress and get better. Obviously he’s running a full schedule this year and they’ve done well at all the races they’ve run, and they’re competing for a top-five position in points.

Nix: I want to ask more about that, because you said you’re a crew chief as well. So what’s it like? Because you’re driving today, obviously, but you do a lot of work on the crew chief side as well. So tell me a bit more about that.

Wright: Growing up, we built and worked on our own cars and still do that with the late model stuff and this stuff’s been no different. It’s a completely different car, but one we took last year, rebuilt from the ground up, and rehung the body.

It’s been a steep learning curve, and then we compete against drivers who’ve been doing it for 10-20 years. This is really year number two and ARCA race number eight for me so I’m learning a lot every time. We haven’t returned to a track we’ve raced at before yet until now, so hopefully we can run a little better and show that we’ve learned and come a long way since last year.

Nix: On that note, you’re coming back to IRP for a second time, and you had a good run last year. What are your goals for this year’s running?

Wright: Last year, I had never driven here, and we got about five laps of practice before the race started. So I learned throughout the first half of the race and made some pretty big adjustments on it at the pit stop to get to where we got in the end.

But returning this year, I’m a lot more comfortable in the seat. I’m more confident in the car we brought, and in the changes we’ve made to it since we were here last year. Everything we’ve done will be a little bit better, so I’m more confident that we’ll be closer than where we were last year. I’m excited, you know, this track’s a lot of fun.

It’s super wide; you can run the top, you can run the middle, you can run the bottom, you can race three-wide. It makes it hard to pass, but it’s a lot of fun to race.

Nix: You spoke about how you went through late models and your relationship with Mark Noble. From your perspective, what would it take to get more late model drivers in ARCA?

Wright: I’m not sure. It’s something different and new, and it can provide more exposure than the late model side, but it’s hard to find the resources and put the ARCA deal together. You try to run with a big team and that’s extremely expensive.

I’m not really sure. That seems to be the only way to be competitive is running with one of those big teams. That’s more than what most of the late model teams spend in a season per race is what they cost, so I’m not sure what that would take. But, as far as myself goes, I’m just grateful to be here, thankful for Mark and MAN Motorsports.

Nix: On that vein, do you have any more races planned this year?

Wright: Yeah, we’re planning on doing Bristol Motor Speedway. A couple of our sponsors, Tennessee 811 and Wilson County Visitors Bureau, wanted to do Bristol, and we’re happy we were able to make it happen for them.

So hopefully we get through today clean, get back to Nashville on Monday, and get back to work on getting ready for Bristol.

Nix: Do you have any aspirations of going beyond ARCA East or national?

Wright: I’d like to. Obviously this year, we’re running three ARCA races. We ran Nashville Fairgrounds, which was an East race, and this and Bristol are national races.

I’d like to run a few more next year, but it’s hard to do. It’s hard to find resources, the help, and even just preparing the car is hard because we don’t have a lot of help. We don’t have any full-time people. It’s a lot of work and hard to do, but I’d love the opportunity to run a few more.

But I’m grateful to be doing the ones that we do. It wouldn’t be possible without everybody involved: Cedar City RV, Store Self Storage, Tennessee 811, and Visit Wilco. Without all of them, we wouldn’t be here anyway,