The fifth race of the 2026 ARCA Menards Series season took place on Friday afternoon at Watkins Glen International. Kaden Honeycutt was pulling double duty this weekend by competing in both the ARCA Menards Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races on the same day. The Truck Series regular would take the first part of the weekend by winning the ARCA race by three seconds over Carson Brown.
“I think the key was just an amazing car,” Honeycutt told Fox Sports 1 in his post-race interview. “Thank you to Mohawk Northeast, Al Heinke, my Bruce Cook guys, CRT (Cook Racing Technologies), Toyota Racing, and MMI. I just couldn’t done it without them. They just did a great job, and the car was phenomenal all day. I was a little bit free through the carousel, and I had to work on that a little bit. I think that was mostly on my end. Just a great car. All these guys do a great job. My crew chief is the man, Bruce (Cook, Team Owner) is the man, all of them are. They just do an amazing job.
“I want to express thanks to Al Heinke and HFR for helping us get this car put together, we wouldn’t have been here. Thanks to them for that for sure.”
Qualifying was canceled early Friday morning due to inclement weather in the area, which delayed the start of practice. With qualifying canceled, the field was set by team owner points per the ARCA rulebook. This meant that Max Reaves, who is piloting the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Cook Out Toyota, received the pole as the No. 18 JGR is leading the current owner points standings.
Honeycutt was also the fastest in the early morning practice session with a lap time of 1:22.600 at 106.780 mph in the No. 17 Bruce Cook entry. He was making his first ARCA start since 2023. There was a scheduled halfway race break at or around Lap 21, with the race being scheduled for 41 laps.
Brown started on the outside pole of Reaves and took the lead early on in the first part of the esses shortly after the green flag flew. Reaves slipped to second with last year’s winner, Tristan McKee, rounding out the top three. Those three drivers would break away from the field, battling amongst themselves. A couple of laps later, McKee passed Reaves for second and set his eyes on race leader Brown.
At Lap 10, however, Honeycutt made the pass on McKee to move into second after starting in the 15th position. Honeycutt would eventually take the lead on Lap 13 from Brown to insert himself at the top spot and led through the halfway break, which came on Lap 21. Brown, McKee, Thomas Annunziata, Sam Corry, Tyler Kicera, Gavan Boschele, Jake Bollman, Isabella Robusto, and Ryan Gemmell rounded out the Top 10. At the time of the race break, there were only 15 cars on the lead lap.
Pole sitter, Reaves, slipped to 14th in the running order. This was due to hitting one of the tire pack barriers in Turn 1. He also had transmission problems in the first part of the race.
Honeycutt and Brown were on the front row as the race went back green with 18 laps to go. Though the caution would fly immediately for a major accident at the exit of Turn 7. The No. 19 of Corey Aiken couldn’t make the turn and hit the wall. In doing so, he collected the No. 97 of Jason Kitzmiller. Both cars received heavy damage. During the caution period, Reaves came back down pit road to top off for fuel.
Following the caution, the race went back green with 14 laps to go, as both Honeycutt and Brown were on the front row. Annunziata made a dive bomb move heading into Turn 1 and moved into second place after going three wide on Brown and McKee. With 10 laps to go, Brown got around McKee for second.
Unfortunately for McKee, he fell out of race contention with seven laps to go. This was due to a potential mechanical failure that ultimately took him out of the race. Meanwhile, Brown passed Annunziata for second place and would try to hunt down Honeycutt for the lead. However, he was unable to chase down the race leader. Honeycutt would go on to dominate and win the General Tire 100 at Watkins Glen International Raceway.
Brown had to settle for a top-five finish as he ran out of time in his No. 28 Pinnacle Racing Group Chevrolet.
“I don’t know, I like to think so,” Brown said about trying to get to Honeycutt in his interview with Fox Sports 1. “I had a pretty good racecar, just a big thank you to Pinnacle Racing Group and to all my sponsors, including Chevrolet. Just needed a little bit more. I felt we had a good racecar; we just started off really free. After the halfway break, we made some really good adjustments and got it tightened up a little bit. I felt like we had something, but then kind of just got shuffled back on the restart with the three wide. After that, we kind of slowly worked our way back up there. Just needed a little bit more and two more laps.”
Brown, Annunziata, Boschele, Corry, Robusto, Andrew Ranger, Reaves, Gemmell, and Bollman completed the Top 10 finishers.
There were two cautions for six laps and two leaders among two lead changes.
Honeycutt led one time for 29 laps en route to victory.
The next race for the ARCA Menards Series takes place next Saturday night at Toledo Speedway. It will air live on Fox Sports 1 at 7 p.m./ET.
