The Bush’s Best is the opening race of a quartet of races at Bristol Motor Speedway. The 200-lap race at the 0.533-mile short track is a combination race featuring the ARCA Menards Series and ARCA Menards Series East. It’s the penultimate race of the 2026 season for the main series and the season finale for the East.
Thirty-five drivers are entered at Bristol, the most since the East series, then known as the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, standalone event in 2013.
The national division left Salem Speedway, and word in the garage is that one’s Salem performance would be a good indicator of one’s Bristol performance.
Moreover, the expected favorites are Max Reaves in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota, Tristan McKee in the No. 77 Pinnacle Racing Group Chevrolet, and Carson Brown in the No. 28 PRG Chevy.
For Reaves and McKee, there’s more at stake than just the race trophy. McKee leads Reaves by one point in the East standings.
McKee finished second in this race one year ago, behind the No. 18 team, which led every lap en route to the victory with Brent Crews driving the Toyota.
“I have a race under my belt at Bristol, which is good,” McKee told ARCA Racing. “I feel like I’ll get up to speed there pretty quickly and be able to dial in the car instead of working on getting used to the track. I know Max Reaves hasn’t been to Bristol, but we’re kind of doing our own deal to get our car really good for the race.
“I definitely was pretty fresh back then, but I feel like I have a good baseline going into Bristol. I learned a lot about the aero, and where you’re starting as far as the bottom launching and top launching on restarts and how important restarts are. There are a lot of variables, but I feel like I’ll be super prepared.”
McKee wound up sixth at Salem, a good run after his team replaced a broken right-front sway bar arm during the second competition caution.
Still, that was five spots behind the victor Reaves. If neither driver earns any bonus points by winning the pole or leading laps, Reaves must finish two spots better than McKee. McKee holds the tiebreaker too thanks to scoring the most wins this East season. Now, he hopes to parlay that into another trophy, the ultimate season-long goal.
“For my first full-time year in ARCA East, a championship would mean a lot,” he continued. “I feel like our team has fought hard all year long trying to make our cars better throughout these races. There have been dogfights in some of these, so it’d feel good for the whole team I feel like.”
Reaves lacks experience at Bristol, but his No. 18 team has been the best there.
Reaves enters with momentum thanks to his Salem win, and if either driver wins at Bristol, he will claim that crown.
“It’s just another race track, but it’s also not,” Reaves added. “It’s one of those where it’s crazy. Super high-banked, super fast, a lot different than anything I’ve ever been on. If I can take care of my stuff, we’ll be alright.
“It’d mean a lot to wrap up such a good year we’ve had. Even if we don’t win it, my team works so hard every day. Just to win the championship would show how hard we worked, but even if I win it or don’t, it doesn’t change how hard we worked to get there.”
Carson Brown is eighth in points, and while he would need some help via poor finishes from other drivers, he could climb as high as fifth. His No. 28 team is third in East owner points, 16 behind McKee’s No. 77 team. So, Brown could have been in the championship hunt if he had competed in the season opener at Hickory Motor Speedway. Nevertheless, he will graduate into the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series with Richard Childress Racing in 2027.
Brown is also visiting Bristol for the first time.
“Physically and mentally, Bristol is very challenging,” he said in a release. “I expect it to be hard. All I have to go off is what I’ve experienced in the sim. I learned that it’s difficult to get into a rhythm at Bristol.
“Between the high banking and the bumps, you’re always up on the wheel, changing your line, changing your throttle placement. It’s a challenge I want to face.”
Brown finished 10th at Salem after he spun while racing for a top-five spot late.
The spotlight for the East title is on McKee and Reaves, deservedly so, but reigning champion Isaac Kitzmiller still is alive in the title hunt. Kitzmiller trails by 17 markers, which with a 35-car field, is not insurmountable. If Reaves and McKee have issues relegating them to subpar results, Kitzmiller can overtake them both to go back-to-back.
“Seventeen points is a lot to overcome in one race, especially with two talented drivers ahead of us, but Bristol is a place where anything can happen quickly,” Kitzmiller said in a release. “We have to control what we can control, stay out of trouble and capitalize on every opportunity.
“We’re not going there with anything to lose. We’re going there determined to fight until the checkered flag. If circumstances fall our way, hopefully we’ll leave as champions again. If they don’t, we still want to close the season with a performance that makes everyone associated with this team proud.”
Meanwhile, the battle for the main-series title between Nitro Motorsports teammates widened after Salem. Jake Bollman placed second and Thomas Annunziata was seventh after his No. 70 Toyota sustained damage in a late-race incident. As a result, the difference between Bollman and Annunziata is 13.
Bollman has never visited Bristol before.
“Showing up to all these different tracks for me, right, like the only thing we have is iRacing for the bigger tracks that’s on it,” Bollman told media members in a pre-race Zoom session. “Obviously, we have our manufacturer deal. That’s been an insane help for me. You know, Toyota Racing has done a ton of that side of stuff for the driver development side. But film is a big thing for me. You know, I’ve watched hours and hours of it, from pre-race stuff, getting ready for it. So, I just try to show up the best that I can so that I don’t waste time in practice since we don’t have much, only, you know, about 45 minutes we get. So really no time to learn the track. You kind of have to fire off right off the bat.”
Annunziata has an O’Reilly Series start at Bristol and a fifth-place finish in this ARCA race one year ago, with Nitro. Still, his 13-point deficit had him disappointed after Salem.
One driver who could win the race, thereby taking away those race-winning points from the field, is NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Kaden Honeycutt. Using this race ahead of the opening Chase race at Bristol, which will directly follow the ARCA race, Honeycutt is two-for-two in his ARCA starts this year, including a win at short track Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Bristol is not Honeycutt’s best track; hence the reason he’s running this ARCA race. He has one ARCA start there, where he crashed to a 21st-place DNF after starting seventh. In seven Truck starts at BMS, he has one top 10 and two laps led. Don’t count him out, but Honeycutt certainly needs to be better there.
If you’re one of the other drivers in the field, good luck. Navigating lapped traffic is always a challenge with the disparity in speeds, so wrecking happens. With only one competition caution at lap 100, this race could be over quickly.
The green flag for the ARCA race at Bristol on Thursday, Sept. 17, will fly at 5:30 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.
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