The 2021 ARCA Menards Series season had six winners, though only Ty Gibbs and Corey Heim won multiple times. Through eight races this season, there have been five different winners with three drivers having gone to victory lane twice.
To win an ARCA race, a driver must start inside the top 10.
The last time an ARCA-winning driver started outside the top 10 was the 2019 season finale at Kansas Speedway. Before that, it was Todd Gilliland driving from 15th to the win in the fourth race that season at Talladega Superspeedway.
That means it has been 48 ARCA races since the winner started outside the top 10. Since the beginning of the 2019 season, the winning driver has started inside the top 10 in 66 of the 68 ARCA races (97.0%).
This statistic is not a surprise among the frontrunners in the ARCA garage, however.
“That’s kind of what we expect this year,” Venturini Motorsports team co-owner Bill Venturini Sr. told Frontstretch. “The quantity isn’t as good as we would hope, but the quality is better than you can expect. Everyone is stepping up their game.”
“The equipment is very good in the top 10 teams. What the drivers do with it is another thing. Our cars are almost prepared identically. Look at Tom Hessert. He hasn’t raced in four years, and he qualified fifth [at Berlin Raceway]. But he’s only 15-hundredths of a second off the pole. That’s nothing! That gives you an idea of how tight the competition is.”
Venturini Motorsports has won 78 ARCA races, and its drivers, Heim and Jesse Love, have won a combined three poles this season.
Shannon Rursch is the crew chief for the No. 20, split between Heim and Love. Rursch is also not surprised the contending drivers start at the front.
“It’s tough,” Rursch said. “The cars that are fast are the ones that will win the race. You’ve got six or seven cars that can win a race.”
In ARCA competition, there are several different varieties for setting the starting lineup. At Daytona International Speedway, there is group qualifying, with the field split into four groups via random draw.
For other events, such as the next ARCA event at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, there is one on-track session ahead of the race. The session is a joint practice and qualifying session, where the practice times also count as the qualifying times. If you’re first in practice, you win the pole. If you’re second fastest in practice, you qualify second, third in practice starts third, etc.
Yet other…
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