Preview & Projected Results: ARCA East at Flat Rock
Friday, July 31, 2026 at 6:30 PM
ARCA East: Sunbelt Rentals 150
As all three of NASCAR's national series are entering a rare off-week, the only "major" stock car event this weekend is the ARCA East race at Flat Rock Speedway. The final of four standalone East Series races this season, Flat Rock could prove to be a pivotal race in this year's title fight, as last weekend at IRP, both of the main title contenders, Tristan McKee and Max Reaves, were involved in a crash trying to get around a lapped car. McKee, the points leader going into IRP, got the worst of it and eventually had to come to the garage, while Max Reaves recovered to finish ninth.
In ARCA, there are no stage points to buffer out a bad finish, and in the East Series specifically, there are usually only 20-ish cars in each race, so McKee's 32nd place finish at IRP was a catastrophic hit to his points situation. Going into the race, the 15 year old prospect had a 20 point lead over Reaves (comparable to roughly a 40 point lead or more in NASCAR), but after finishing in the garage, he now finds himself three points behind Reaves, and only six points ahead of the new challenger and the defending East Series champion, Isaac Kitzmiller.
Here's a table showing each of the three drivers' finishes so far this season:
| Driver | Hickory(1) | Rockingham(2) | Nashville(3) | Toledo(4) | IRP(5) | Avg. Fin. | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Max Reaves | 2 | 8 | 1 | 11 | 9 | 6.2 | 250 |
| Tristan McKee | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 32 | 7.6 | 247 |
| Isaac Kitzmiller | 3 | 3 | 5 | 13 | 5 | 5.8 | 241 |
I'm not sure I would have believed you if you told me Isaac Kitzmiller, with his family team, would have a better average finish than Joe Gibbs Racing's Max Reaves and Pinnacle Racing Group / Spire Motorsports' Tristan McKee over halfway into the season, but here we are. Yet, without any of the winning bonuses, Kitzmiller is still behind his less-consistent rivals, and without both of them facing more trouble, this is likely the closest he'll be to the championship lead for the rest of the season.
As for my championship pick, I still have to go with McKee, who has shown more speed and consistency than Reaves overall, and simply got unlucky last week, compounded by the fact that his incident happened early in the race and in the biggest field so far this season.
Getting back to this week's race, Flat Rock, the shortest track on the ARCA schedule at just 0.25 miles, has seen no more than 16 cars in the field since its return to the ARCA schedule in 2023, so this weekend with 22 cars entered, will be its biggest field in quite some time.
Last year's race in particular was probably one of the weakest fields in ARCA history, with only 15 cars entered (2 of them being start-and-parks) and, in my opinion, a single contender for the win, the Joe Gibbs 18 of Max Reaves. Reaves went on to lead 144 of the 150 laps, only briefly challenged by Tyler Reif in the Sigma Performance Services 23 machine, but this year, with Tristan McKee and Carson Brown on the entry list, he will likely have a much harder time dominating the race.
Statcar Projected Results for the Sunbelt Rentals 150
Note: Updated after qualifying
| Pred. Fin. | Car # | Driver | Team | Make |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 28 | Carson Brown* | Pinnacle Racing Group | Chevrolet |
| 2 | 18 | Max Reaves* | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota |
| 3 | 77 | Tristan McKee* | Pinnacle Racing Group | Chevrolet |
| 4 | 79 | Isaac Kitzmiller | ACR Motorsports | Chevrolet |
| 5 | 85 | Quinn Davis* | City Garage Motorsports | Ford |
| 6 | 91 | Matt Kemp | Maples Motorsports | Chevrolet |
| 7 | 95 | Jackson McLerran* | MAN Motorsports | Toyota |
| 8 | 65 | Jeffery MacZink | MacZink Racing | Toyota |
| 9 | 11 | Blaine Donahue* | Fast Track Racing | Ford |
| 10 | 19 | Austin Vaughn | Maples Motorsports | Ford |
| 11 | 38 | Esteban Rodriguez* | MCM Racing Development | Toyota |
| 12 | 10 | Craig Pellegrini Jr.* | Fast Track Racing | Toyota |
| 13 | 34 | Brian Barbarow* | VWV Racing | Toyota |
| 14 | 03 | Alex Clubb | Clubb Racing Inc. | Ford |
| 15 | 13 | Rita Goulet | Integrity Autosports | Toyota |
| 16 | 06 | Nate Moeller | Wayne Peterson Racing | Toyota |
| 17 | 12 | Dan Boys* | Fast Track Racing | Toyota |
| 18 | 5 | Michael Clayton* | City Garage Motorsports | Ford |
| 19 | 99 | Michael Maples | Maples Motorsports | Chevrolet |
| 20 | 00 | Toby Blanton* | Jet Daddy Racing | Chevrolet |
| 21 | 86 | Alex Malycke* | Clubb Racing Inc. | Ford |