How High Can Sammy Smith Climb In ARCA Point Standings?

Sammy Smith has an impressive ARCA resume.

He won the 2021 ARCA Menards Series East championship and currently leads those standings with two races to go this season.

In the main ARCA series, Smith has won twice and has seven top-five and top-10 finishes. More impressively, Smith only has competed in eight main races. His career-worst ARCA finish was an 18th-place DNF in his series debut in 2021 at Iowa Speedway.

Yes, Smith has become a contender in all ARCA events. Smith has followed his ARCA predecessor Ty Gibbs in leading laps and being a regular force to be reckoned with at ARCA events. He’s atop the Frontstretch ARCA power rankings, too.

The question at hand, though, is how far can Smith climb in the ARCA point standings?

Because he turned 18 on June 4, Smith missed four main ARCA races due to being ineligible to compete at the bigger tracks of Daytona International Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway, Kansas Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway. In addition, Smith missed the 50-point bonus for not competing in four of the first five events of the ARCA season.

Currently, Smith is ninth in points, trailing points leader Rajah Caruth by 164 points. There are 11 races to go this ARCA season, so Smith would need to gain at least 15 points per race on his fellow competitors to win the ARCA title.

While not mathematically impossible, it is improbable for two main reasons.

First, the top three – Caruth, Nick Sanchez and Daniel Dye – have a combined two DNFs. Those three drivers have fast Chevrolets. Smith not only would need to maintain his 2.0 average finishing position, gaining more points than them, but those three would all need to have at least two or three ARCA events in which they finished in the bottom five finishing positions. Based on their performances thus far, that’s incredibly implausible.

Smith has a better average finishing than all three, but those three all have an average finishing position of at least 8.0 or better.

In addition to Caruth, Sanchez and Dye all running well, Smith’s championship odds are diminished by the ARCA car counts.

Only five of the nine ARCA events this season have featured at least 25 competitors. So, if there are only 25 cars competing in an ARCA event, if Smith finishes first and his championship three contenders finish 23rd, 24th, and 25th, then he only gains 22-24 points, respectively, on each driver. Again, based on Caruth, Sanchez, and Dye’s speed this season, Smith cannot gain enough points…