ARCA Preview: Spruce 212 at Salem

On Saturday, Sept. 12, the Spruce 212 will air live on FOX. It will be the first ARCA Menards Series short-track event broadcast live on over-the-air TV.

To mark the historic occurrence, the race length has been increased from its usual 200 to 212 laps. This honors ARCA’s 112th visit to the 0.555-mile Indiana racetrack. Yep, Salem has hosted ARCA more than any other track.

On top of the historic nature, the racetrack has a passionate new ownership group that has made significant improvements to the facility, including upgraded lighting for the race thanks to Musco Lighting.

Moreover, zero former Salem winners are entered in the field.

So, with all this hype surrounding the Spruce 212, who will go to victory lane?

Well, the favorite must be Max Reaves. Driving for top-tier Joe Gibbs Racing, Reaves has won three times. Combined with Gio Ruggiero’s four triumphs, JGR’s No. 18 is first in the owner points standings.

In 2025, Reaves led the most laps at Salem, but he crashed out to a career-worst 18th-place DNF. Nevertheless, his No. 18 team has won three times at Salem, in 2019, 2022, and 2024.

Reaves’ team is first in owner points, but the No. 18 has a precarious five-point lead over Pinnacle Racing Group’s No. 28. The PRG No. 77, meanwhile, sits fifth in points, only 15 markers behind third place.

The two PRG pilots, Carson Brown and Tristan McKee, are visiting Salem for the first time. Both drivers enter Salem having won their most recent ARCA races. McKee won at Madison International Speedway and Brown won at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds, giving PRG back-to-back wins.

To boot, PRG was victorious in the ’25 Salem edition with Brenden Queen. If the PRG duo want to continue their winning ways, then their crew chiefs will be the ones to keep delivering the race-winning magic. Brown’s crew chief Steven Dawson won with Queen last year, and McKee’s crew chief Kevin Reed Jr. guided Leland Honeyman to a third-place result in that race.

Speaking of crew chiefs, Shannon Rursch has his driver Thomas Annunziata eight points behind Jake Bollman for the driver point standings lead. Rursch won at Salem in 2019 and 2023, so he certainly knows how to prepare a car for Salem.

“I’m excited too,” Annunziata told media in a pre-race Zoom conference. “I mean, we’re going to go there and rip the fence. It seems to have a lot of banking, it’s aggressive, so got a lot of character, I feel like that fits my wheelhouse and, yeah, I mean, can’t think about the points too much. Just going to try to go there and try to get another trophy, but, yeah, we’ll see what happens and how the dice fall.”

“Honestly, I feel like just the track itself looks really cool and it’s going to be a good weekend,” Bollman added. “We’re here to win the championship and obviously I still want to win a race by the end of the year. So, I’m going to keep my mindset to that and kind of not let the points get in my head at all. Just go race by race, it’s all you can do, and hopefully this weekend goes good and hopefully we’ll have a fast car that, you know, will be in contention to win and just keep the points lead.

“But Salem, I feel like, has its characteristic. It’s still another half-mile oval for me at least. The banking’s going to be really good, right. It’s there. You know, you can wheel the car and kind of make it do what you want, so it’s going to be a really fun track.”

The two Nitro Motorsports teammates have raced more aggressively lately, understandably so as the season nears its end. So, with a short-track race under the lights on national TV, is there a line the duo won’t cross when racing each other for the championship?

“Take the fifth,” Bollman quickly answered with a chuckle.

“I guess that line depends on, you know, who starts certain things, right,” Annunziata said. “I feel like I haven’t initiated too much. So, you know, it’s the last three races, it’s going to be what it’s going to be. We’re part of the entertainment business, so it’ll be exciting for the fans. But, yeah, I’m only going to take so much and we’re going to see what’s going to happen. It’ll be exciting, but it’s a championship battle; let’s have fun with it, you know.”

“And in my point, right you know, it’ll be a really good show if we were to actually race for the championship out instead of just, you know, wrecking each other, wrecking ourselves in the same race,” Bollman continued. “Cause, you know, that can happen too, right? It’ll be a good race, a good championship battle, just to really race it out and show who actually has the talent. Not saying that, but finishing races off to win it more or less instead of just door-banging and moving each other out of the way, right. I feel like DuQuoin was really good … we were both fast. And he fell back, I fell back, right, we were just going back and forth and obviously I was on the good stick of it and he was just on the bad side of it, right. And I feel like the next three races, we’re going to be in that situation every week … it’s just going to keep going back and forth until then.”

In addition to those two, their teammates Isabella Robusto, who will move up to third in points, and Gavan Boschele will have fast Toyotas. But the ones to keep an eye on during this race? The CR7 Motorsports duo of Landon S. Huffman and Matt Kemp.

Huffman makes his first ARCA start since placing third at Chicagoland Speedway the weekend of July 4.

In his four ARCA platform starts, Huffman has two top fives and three top 10s. His lone finish outside the top 10 came at Elko Speedway, when mechanical woes relegated him to a disappointing 14th-place finish. He was strong at Elko, though, starting second and leading 130 laps.

Huffman will drive the No. 97 in place of Jason Kitzmiller, who is attending his son’s wedding this weekend, understandably so, instead of wheeling his racecar.

Other than the ARCA Menards Series East race at Flat Rock Speedway this year, this is arguably Kemp’s best-ever opportunity. The CR7 No. 79, driven by Isaac Kitzmiller, has a runner-up finish at the Illinois State Fairgrounds, three top fives, and seven top 10s in 11 starts.

Hot take: Kemp nabs a top five. He’s performed solidly in underfunded equipment.

Now, driving for a team with a driver in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chase, Kemp just needs to do his job and he will impress.

If you’re at the racetrack on Saturday, the 12th, I look forward to seeing you there. I will be there, wearing my Frontstretch polo and hat.

If you cannot make it to Salem, the green flag for the Spruce 212 will fly at 8 p.m. ET with TV coverage provided by FOX.