The ARCA Menards Series rolls into Phoenix Raceway on Thursday, March 5, for the second race of its 2026 season.
The one-mile oval will see 40 cars contest a 150-mile, 150-lap race Thursday evening. The race will serve as the lone combination race featuring the national and ARCA Menards Series West drivers.
ARCA Phoenix Entry List
While there are no former winners entered in the field, and ARCA season-opening winner Gio Ruggiero is not in the field, there is still plenty of intrigue.
Joe Gibbs Racing won that first race of the season at Daytona International Speedway and now hands the reins of its No. 18 Toyota to 16-year-old Max Reaves. Reaves has never raced at Phoenix, but fared very well in 2025. He found victory lane in both the main and ARCA Menards Series East. Over the past five years, JGR has won ARCA series events at Phoenix seven times.
Keeping things in the Toyota camp, Nitro Motorsports again brings six cars to the racetrack. Its list of drivers includes three full-time national division drivers, two full-time West drivers, and a notable up-and-coming part-time driver.
Thomas Annunziata, Isabella Robusto and Jake Bollman will continue their quest for a championship out west on Thursday. Bollman recorded a runner-up finish at Daytona, but Annunziata and Robusto each ran into issues during the race, and both finished outside of the top 25.
Annunziata has two career starts at Phoenix, including last year’s West finale driving for Nitro, where he finished fourth. Annunziata has shown very impressive speed in his select ARCA starts to date, though only a few of those starts have come on short tracks. If the 20-year-old can adapt quickly to the closer-quarters racing, he will likely prove to be a threat this weekend and beyond as the schedule progresses.
Phoenix ‘a Big Test’ for Thomas Annunziata After Daytona DNF
Robusto once again started her season dealing with mechanical gremlins, pulling off track at the midway caution at Daytona. Looking ahead to Phoenix, Robusto ran into a similar issue in 2025, losing an engine early, resulting in a 31st-place finish. She also ran the West finale in November, finishing 11th. Throughout her career to this point, however, Robusto has shown impressive prowess on short ovals and will likely be a contender Thursday if the mechanical issues stay away.
As for Bollman, running the West series the last handful of seasons likely gives him an advantage. When it comes to Phoenix, he’s run the race each of the last two years, though he hadn’t finished any better than 24th in those two starts. On short tracks out West, Bollman has one win, three top fives, six top 10s and 198 laps led in nine starts.
Mia Lovell and Julian DaCosta are running full time for Nitro in the West this season. DaCosta has run a handful of races in 2025, both on short ovals, and he finished inside the top 10 both times. Now racing similar equipment and chasing a championship, he will face the deepest field he’s seen in his ARCA career.
Looking at Lovell, her stock car experience is very limited, coming from a TransAm background. With that being said, Thursday will be her first trip to Phoenix in her career. She finished 12th at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway in the West season debut last week, and made a handful of starts for Sigma Performance Services in the CARS Pro Late Model Tour in 2025. The 19-year-old will be behind the wheel of the No. 15 Thursday, the same entry she’ll pilot full-time in the West all season long.
The final of the six Nitro entries this week will be Jade Avedisian, who will climb aboard the No. 90. Avedisian began her 2026 ARCA slate with a pole at Kern in the West season opener. She finished eighth in that event. Avedisian, like many other drivers in the Nitro camp this week, ran the West finale in 2025 at Phoenix, where she finished 19th.
Pinnacle Racing Group heads to Phoenix with a pair of new drivers in its lineup, with highly touted youngsters Tristan McKee and Carson Brown in the two cars. McKee will drive the No. 77 with Brown in the No. 28.
Like many others previously mentioned, both ran last year’s West finale at the track. McKee finished fourth, with Brown finishing runner up, driving the same No. 28 he’s slated to drive on Thursday. Both have limited starts in ARCA, with McKee only making five starts across all three platforms and Brown just two. McKee found instant success, only finishing outside the top three once, and Brown was in the mix for the win at Phoenix last November.
Taylor Reimer will run part time for PRG in 2026, but at Phoenix, she will pilot Central Coast Racing’s No. 13. Reimer has kicked around the shorter tracks on the ARCA schedule the last few years and has been very competitive in nearly all her starts. She finished 12th last year at Phoenix, but has three career top 10s in three starts on paved short tracks in ARCA competition.
Trevor Huddleston is fresh off an ARCA West title last season, following that up with a fourth-place finish in the season opener at Kern last weekend. However, he heads to a track that’s been a bit of a struggle in the past. In his previous ARCA races at the track, Huddleston has recorded five finishes outside the top 10, and of his five inside of that mark, three of them came in races that didn’t serve as combination events. When racing alongside ARCA’s national division at the one-mile oval, Huddleston’s best finish was 10th, a mark he recorded in both 2021 and 2023. Since then, he has finished no higher than 12th. With the deeper field, a good run at Phoenix could make or break the West championship battle, making a good run for Huddleston primitive in defending his title.
Mason Massey Opens ARCA West Season With Victory at Kern
Mason Massey is a week removed from his first career ARCA West victory at Kern, leading 31 laps. Massey carries more experience than most of his competitors, likely giving him an upper hand come race time. Massey has three career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts at Phoenix, finishing as high as 22nd for Alpha Prime Racing last March.
His teammate, Hailie Deegan, is fresh off a sixth-place finish in her return to ARCA West competition. Deegan carries a handful of previous starts at Phoenix into this race, finishing as high as 15th in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and fourth in ARCA competition. With the combination race, the field is stacked heavier than it would be in a standard West race, but both Bill McAnally Racing entries should be competitive on Thursday evening.
Father-son duo Jason and Isaac Kitzmiller will compete against one another for the first time in 2026 out West this week, with Jason in his familiar No. 97 and Isaac in the No. 79. The reigning East champion, Isaac Kitzmiller has yet to compete in an ARCA race that isn’t a combination event with the East, and thus has yet to turn any laps at Phoenix. Short tracks were a very strong point for him in his championship season, scoring three top fives in 2025.
As for Jason, after a 27th-place finish at this event one year ago, he only recorded one finish outside the top 10 on short paved ovals, an 11th-place finish at Salem Speedway. In the four events that the two went head-to-head in last season, Isaac finished ahead of Jason in all four.
Thursday’s race will be a one-day show. There will be a 45-minute practice session beginning at 3:15 p.m. ET. Qualifying is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET, and the race will go green at 6 p.m. ET, live on FOX Sports 1.
Still not enough is written about driver Taylor Reimer ? why is this? very little when she is the most improving lady driver among the new women drivers, why the teams don’t sign her full time is also beyond me, only part time but at least she was able to secure a ride for this event in Phoenix , many questions exist to me ? but I guess she will have to prove herself more in her consistent finishes
Ok, there is some written here about Ms. Reimer but more needs to be written
Hey, Pinnacle Racing why not sign Taylor Reimer to a full-time ride please?