Rain scrubbed ARCA Menards Series practice and qualifying at Kansas Speedway on Friday, leaving the field for tonight’s title-deciding Menards 150 set entirely by owner points.
That washout means Jake Bollman and Thomas Annunziata, the Nitro Motorsports teammates separated by just 16 points, will settle the 2026 championship without a single practice lap to dial in their cars.
Storms parked over the Kansas City area for much of Friday afternoon, and forecasters had already flagged a strong chance of rain arriving well before the 8 p.m. EDT green flag. NASCAR insider Bob Pockrass confirmed both sessions were washed out, with the 100-lap, 150-mile race still set to go off as scheduled on FS1.
| ARCA MENARDS SERIES — MENARDS 150 STARTING LINEUP | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 ARCA Menards Series Event #20 • Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, KS • 9/25/2026 | ||||||
| Pos | Car | Driver | Hometown | Sponsor | OEM | Team Owner |
| 1 | 18 | Giovanni Ruggiero | Seekonk, MA | First Auto Group | Toyota | Joe Gibbs |
| 2 | 28 | Carson Brown* | New London, NC | Whelen | Chevrolet | Mark Webb |
| 3 | 20 | Jake Bollman* | Huntington Beach, CA | Nitro Motorsports | Toyota | Joe Tovo |
| 4 | 77 | Lanie Buice* | Jackson, GA | Sunoco/Chevrolet Performance | Chevrolet | Mark Webb |
| 5 | 70 | Thomas Annunziata | Colts Neck, NJ | JBL | Toyota | Nick Tucker |
| 6 | 25 | Gavan Boschele* | Mooresville, NC | Toyota Racing | Toyota | Nick Tucker |
| 7 | 91 | Austin Vaughn* | Burnsville, MS | Maples Motorsports/WAV Racing | Ford | Michael Maples |
| 8 | 97 | Jason Kitzmiller | Maysville, WV | A.L.L. Construction/Carter CAT | Chevrolet | Codie Rohrbaugh |
| 9 | 55 | Isabella Robusto | Fort Mill, SC | Mobil 1 | Toyota | Joe Tovo |
| 10 | 12 | Takuma Koga | Nagoya, Japan | Macnica/Fast Track Toyota Racing | Toyota | Dustin Hillenburg |
| 11 | 10 | Ed Pompa | Ballston Spa, NY | Hy-Torc of NY/Double H Ranch | Chevrolet | Andy Hillenburg |
| 12 | 11 | D.L. Wilson | Mart, TX | Wilson Traditional Metals | Ford | Andy Hillenburg |
| 13 | 03 | Alex Clubb | Morris, IL | Clubb Racing | Ford | Alex Clubb |
| 14 | 99 | Michael Maples | Choctaw, OK | Maples Motorsports/Castle Packs Power | Chevrolet | Michael Maples |
| 15 | 06 | Nate Moeller | Lafayette, OH | Jake’s Lettering and Graphics | Chevrolet | Wayne Peterson |
| 16 | 86 | Jeff Maconi* | Wilbraham, MA | Clubb Racing | Ford | Alex Clubb |
| 17 | 48 | Brad Smith | Shelby Township, MI | Gary’s Speed Shop | Ford | Brad Smith |
| 18 | 89 | Bobby Earnhardt | Cleveland, NC | Copeland Insurance Agency | Chevrolet | Tim Goulet |
| 19 | 15 | Landon Brown* | Louisville, KY | University Of Kentucky | Toyota | Johanna Tucker |
| 20 | 9 | Landon S Huffman* | Connelly Springs, NC | Lyle’s Tires & Wheels | Chevrolet | Codie Rohrbaugh |
| 21 | 71 | Andy Jankowiak | Buffalo, NY | Phillips 66 Lubricants | Toyota | Kevin Lapierre |
| 22 | 69 | Will Kimmel | Sellersburg, IN | Avsky/Aviation Technology | Ford | Bill Kimmel |
| 23 | 42 | Mike Christopher Jr* | Plainville, CT | Mohawk Northeast | Toyota | Bruce Cook |
| 24 | 81 | Kevin Campbell | Bolivar, MO | 1st Phorm | Chevrolet | Kevin Campbell |
| 25 | 38 | Esteban Rodriguez* | Mexico City, Mexico | MCM Racing Development/EMWA/Collino | Toyota | Max Calles |
| 26 | 83 | Brayton Laster | Greenwood, IN | RexRacingCo.com/Underground Case Breaks | Ford | Brian Clubb |
| 27 | 32 | Charles Weslowski* | Port Jervis, NY | WesTrans | Chevrolet | Charles Weslowski |
| *Denotes Bounty Rookie Challenge Contender. Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, KS. | ||||||
Gio Ruggiero’s Pole Amid the Rain Delay
With no lap times to sort the grid, ARCA fell back on its rulebook, and Pockrass posted the post-washout starting lineup placing Gio Ruggiero on the pole in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Ruggiero has four wins in six ARCA starts this season, according to Frontstretch’s Mark Kristl, and his JGR team leads the owners’ championship over Pinnacle Racing Group’s No. 28.
Carson Brown, piloting that Pinnacle Chevrolet, headlines the group chasing Ruggiero for the win, with Pinnacle Racing Group’s Lanie Buice and CR7 Motorsports’ Landon Huffman also mentioned among the contenders. Frontstretch’s own prediction has Brown taking the checkered flag while Ruggiero secures the owners’ title with a runner-up finish.
Jake Bollman, Thomas Annunziata Chase the Title
The real drama sits in the points standings. Bollman’s 16-point lead over Annunziata means a finish of 10th or better locks up the championship no matter what his teammate does. Annunziata, who beat Bollman to Nitro’s only win this season at Lime Rock Park, holds the tiebreaker if the two end the night dead even.
“It’s tough, right, like I truthfully think that the meaningfulness of winning the championship for me is going to be a lot,” Bollman said on a media call, according to Frontstretch. “I don’t have rides that are going to take me places. I feel like this is going to be a big thing for my career.”
Bollman, born April 22, 2007, in Huntington Beach, California, made his ARCA Menards Series West debut in 2023 and picked up his first series win last year at Colorado National Speedway, according to ARCA’s own driver biography. This is his first season racing ARCA’s full national schedule.
Annunziata, 21, of Colts Neck, New Jersey, arrived in ARCA off three national karting titles and a stint in sports cars, making his series debut in 2024 with a runner-up finish at Daytona. He broke through for his first win last year at Lime Rock Park, according to ARCA’s driver page for the No. 70 team.
ARCA Menards Series’ Long History at Kansas
Friday’s race marks just the second time the ARCA Menards Series championship has been settled at Kansas Speedway. Ty Gibbs won the title there in 2021. The series itself dates to 1953, when John and Mildred Marcum founded it in Toledo, Ohio, as the Midwest Association for Race Cars before renaming it ARCA in 1964 at the urging of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., according to ARCA’s own history of the partnership.
NASCAR bought the series outright in 2018 and folded in the old K&N regional tours as the East and West divisions two years later, cementing ARCA as stock-car racing’s primary developmental ladder. Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe and Christian Eckes all won at Kansas on their way up before reaching NASCAR’s national series, a pipeline the Menards 150 keeps feeding Friday night in Kansas City.
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