There’s a lot to like about the ARCA Racing Series right now and Friday night at Phoenix was reflective of why.
It’s rare that in just the second race of the season, and the first for many, that there was already established professional tension between those who raced it out for the win. Sure, Brenden Queen and Brent Crews developed a friendship racing in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour last season but there is also a built-in rivalry.
For a series that is inherently an Airport terminal where careers serve as a layover between NASCAR and what came before, it’s rare that in March that two drivers already have a history with each other like Queen and Crews.
Queen won the series championship last season as a 26-year-old, another oddity for ARCA these days, and Crews was rookie of the year as a teenager, the norm for this de facto development series but they had a lot of run-ins too.
CARS Tour was especially rough and tumble last season and everyone ran over each other thanks to a new tire compound that had too much grip, not enough fall-off, and didn’t even make it the full season. It created a lot of simmering rivalries.
This one carried over into Phoenix with Queen and Crews trading the lead, and then trading paint on the second green-checkered finish, with Crews winning in his debut for Joe Gibbs Racing. The winning move saw Crews break traction beneath Crews and sending Queen into the marbles and glancing off the wall.
But again, there’s history.
“Yeah, everybody that’s upset about it you can go watch the CARS Tour replay at Langley when I got cost the win after leading 110 out of 125 laps,” Crews said. “So, yeah, I knew he would’ve done the same thing.”
And then Queen:
“The only way they could beat us was to knock us out of the way,” Queen said. “Honestly, I’m going to look at it as ‘I have to do a better job on that restart’. In my defense, I never should have let him get close enough. I gave him the bottom in [turn] one to try and not get hit because he had such a run off (Turn) two because I cleared him.
“I almost wish I wouldn’t have cleared him and stayed door-to-door, then I could have run him up the hill or something.”
Again, that’s a built-in rivalry that you don’t get right off the bat in ARCA and it’s just a shame that Crews at 16 isn’t old enough to battle Queen for another championship at this stage of his career.
But still, Queen has no shortage of compelling championship challengers this season from the returning Lavar Scott, Kole Raz, Lawless Alan, Thad Moffitt and Isabella Robusto – all drivers with experience and tenure.
ARCA actually has an oddly diverse and experienced roster with Truck Series tenure, previous ARCA championship contending seasons or championship short track success. This is a good year to tune in each week, especially when factoring in one-offs like Crews, or the underappreciated Patrick Staropoli, Hendrick Motorsports project Corey Day or even the wildly entertaining Garrett ‘Cleetus McFarland’ Mitchell.
Friday also featured one of the best broadcasts for an ARCA race in a long time with Eric Brennan taking lead play-by-play duties as he does occasionally. A rare pairing with Regan Smith on color and Phil Parsons was just an absolute treat.
While this column is about ARCA, in many ways, many of the best attributes of the CARS Tour made its way into the fourth-tier NASCAR division this year and it’s been all the better for it through the first two races of the season.
