The ARCA Menards Series rolls into Indianapolis, Indiana this week to tackle Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, known commonly as IRP, for race 10 of 20 on the 2024 schedule.
Last season, when ARCA took to the 0.686-mile race track, Jesse Love proved victorious while leading 154 of the 200 laps and lapping all but seven cars in the process. Twenty-five cars were entered for that event, which included ARCA Menards Series East competitors — the race was a combination race, much like this year’s event.
This season, the preliminary entry list sees 31 drivers entered for Friday’s (July 19) Circle City 200, up six entries from last year.
Points leader Andres Perez enters IRP 40 points ahead of second place, though he returns to a track where he struggled in 2023. The 19-year-old finished eighth last season, one lap down, marking his worst short-track finish of that season. Tracks under a mile in length continue to prove relatively challenging for Perez, as he only has two top fives this season on that discipline of track, coming at Dover Motor Speedway and Berlin Raceway.
As for his Rev Racing teammate, Lavar Scott enters IRP coming off his best finish of the season, a second-place effort at Berlin. He too ran IRP in 2023, but unlike his teammate, Scott finished on the lead lap then and earned a top five with a fifth-place finish. Scott now sits only six points behind second-place Greg Van Alst in the points standings and could overtake the spot this week.
For Van Alst, the driver of the No. 35 is on a streak of two top-10 finishes, which is much needed after three finishes outside of that mark previously. He enters his home track for the third time in his career, having finished inside the top 10 in both starts, with a best finish of seventh coming in 2023. He’s also running double duty this weekend, making his third career NASCAR Xfinity Series start in the No. 07 for SS GreenLight Racing on the big Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval on Saturday.
Venturini Motorsports will bring its standard five entries to IRP this weekend, with full-time drivers Kris Wright, Toni Breidinger and Amber Balcaen in their regular entries, along with Gio Ruggiero in the No. 20 and Dean Thompson in the No. 55.
Breidinger sits highest in points of the three full-time drivers. She’s in fourth place, 57 points behind leader Perez and 11 points behind third-place Scott. Breidinger enters IRP on a streak of three consecutive top-10…
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