ARCA racing at New Jersey Motorsports Park
On April 27, 2018, NASCAR had announced that it acquired the ARCA racing series. The series was founded in 1953 by John Marcum known at the time as the Midwest Association for Race Cars. Marcum was friends with Bill France Sr. and founded MARC as a northern counterpart to southern-based NASCAR. Bill France Sr. invited the series to be part of Daytona Speedweeks and the series changed its name from MARC to ARCA. Over the years, ARCA has had a huge presence in helping develop drivers who would later go on to race in NASCAR’s top three series. Some of the drivers who came up through ARCA names include Casey Mears, Kenny Schrader, Kyle Petty, Benny Parsons, Kyle Busch, Dale Jarrett and more. Some have raced in NASCAR but made ARCA their career. Frank Kimmel, who’s won 10 ARCA Series championships and Bobby Gerhart, who’s won the ARCA Daytona race 9 times found successful careers driving in the ARCA series.
The ARCA Series is too valuable for NASCAR to get rid of it especially for the drivers who have benefited from this series and moved up to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. The changes that will most likely happen after the 2019 season is renaming the series, and another change that may happen is a chase playoff system. Speaking of a potential playoff system, NASCAR’s lower series like the K&N Pro Series and Whelen Modified Series don’t use a playoff system. There is a chance that NASCAR could keep the points system that ARCA currently uses. Another possibility that could happen is NASCAR eliminating some tracks that ARCA currently competes on like Berlin Raceway and have them race at current NASCAR tracks. ARCA does race at some NASCAR tracks like Kentucky, Charlotte, Daytona, Pocono, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, and Talladega. It would be nice if NASCAR keeps the tracks that ARCA currently races at along with adding some tracks that ARCA used to race at like New Jersey Motorsports Park. Another possibility that could happen is Monster Energy Cup owners fielding teams in the series. Currently, Joe Gibbs Racing fields a team in the ARCA series with Riley Herbst behind the wheel. Those are just some possibilities and only time will tell what NASCAR will do with the ARCA Racing Series after the 2019 season.
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