The 2026 ARCA Menards Series season continued tonight at the famous Bristol Motor Speedway for what was their second-to-last race of the year, the penultimate round of the national tour championship before they head to Kansas Speedway next weekend to determine this year’s overall champion. Carson Brown, the newly signed Richard Childress Racing driver for the 2027 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, qualified on the pole position with a lap time of 15.334 seconds at 125.134 mph. This would be the scene of the night as he went on to lead every lap of the race to win the race.
“Man, just a big thank you to everyone at Distributor Wire & Cable, Pinnacle Racing Group,” Brown said to Fox Sports 1 in victory lane. “(Spotter) Derek Kneeland up on the tower, he was working his butt off to help me out there and honestly, just be my other set of eyes. This was a tough one. I’m glad I was able to bring it to Victory Lane for these (No.28) guys. Before we came, they were like, ‘Bristol owes us one.’ So, I’m just glad I could do that for them. Just trying to catch up to Kyle Busch’s legacy here.”
Meanwhile, this event was also a combination event with the East Series, which saw their champion crowned tonight as well. Heading into their last race of the season, two drivers who have battled each other all season long were separated by one point. Those two drivers were young phenoms: Spire Motorsports’ Tristan McKee and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Max Reaves. Reaves won the previous ARCA Menards Series event at Salem Speedway, just four days ago.
For either driver to win the championship, one would have to finish ahead of the other, but if the points end in a tie, McKee would win the championship as he had the tiebreaker due to having more wins than Reaves of 4-2. Before the bonus points, Reaves would have to finish two spots ahead of McKee. For qualifying, McKee qualified third and Reaves seventh. The championship would be decided at the end of the 200-lap race. There was also a halfway race break, which occurred at Lap 105.
Thomas Annunziata led the first lap over Brown after taking the lead on the bottom, but Brown would retake the lead on the second lap as Annunziata had a restart violation. Annunziata had to serve a pass-through on pit road after beating Brown to the start/finish line. After serving the penalty, Annunziata was relegated to 33rd, 1 lap down.
At Lap 25, Brown still had the lead over current ARCA Menards Series national points leader Jake Bollman by 0.577 seconds. McKee was third and Reaves fifth. The first caution of the evening fell at Lap 37 for the No. 34 of Ivis Earley, who was stopped on the frontstretch. Earley was sent spinning off Turn 4 after getting bumped from behind.
The race resumed at Lap 43 with Brown and Bollman on the front row, but it was short-lived with another caution coming out a lap later for a multi-car accident on the front stretch. On the replay, it showed the No. 95 of Hunter Wright getting loose off Turn 4 and going around sideways before hitting the inside wall and suffering major front-end damage.
Meanwhile, Bobby Dale Earnhardt in the No. 89 machine also got sideways coming out of Turn 4 and went spinning. Others involved in the incident were the No. 06 of Con Nicolopoulos and the No. 85 of Quinn Davis as well.
Following the lengthy cleanup, the green flag came back out at Lap 54. The third yellow came out at Lap 90 for the No. 53 of Zachary Tinkle. Tinkle was stopped on the frontstretch after cutting down a right-front tire.
The race went to green again at Lap 98 and the halfway race break was extended to Lap 105 due to the late yellow. Despite the extension of the scheduled break, Brown was scored as the leader. He was followed by Bollman, Gavan Boschele, Isaac Kitzmiller, Isabella Robusto, McKee, Reaves, Kaden Honeycutt, Andy Jankowiak, and Jake Finch in the Top 10. Brown had led every lap of the race up to this point.
After the break, it was time to go back racing with 86 laps to go. Annunziata was back on the lead lap in 16th position. Another yellow was called with 73 laps to go for the No. 06 of Nicolopoulos, who had heavy front-end damage after wrecking on the frontstretch and hitting the inside wall. There was a brief fire on the motor, but it was quickly put out by safety officials.
Once the long cleanup was over due to oil leaking from Nicolopoulos, the green flag waved with 52 laps to go, with Brown and Isaac Kitzmiller on the front row. McKee moved to the second position a few laps later following the restart and was ahead of Reaves, who was in the sixth spot. With 30 laps to go, McKee was 0.629 seconds behind Brown. Five laps later, McKee lost ground and was 1.6 seconds back.
With 10 laps to go, Brown had the advantage of 0.722 seconds over McKee, who was challenged by Honeycutt. Brown maintained his pace and went on to lead every lap to win the Bush’s Best 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway over McKee by 2.346 seconds. It was Brown’s first victory since the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds win at the start of this month and the fourth win for the No. 28 by the Pinnacle Racing Group of the season. Furthermore, it was the third overall victory of the year as well. The win also counted toward the East Series since it was a combination event.
However, the bigger story was McKee, as he finished two spots ahead of Reaves (finished fourth) to win the 2026 ARCA Menards East Series championship by three points over Reaves. It was McKee’s first career ARCA title in his career, but his first championship since winning the Trans Am 2 championship last year.
“(The championship) feels really good,” McKee said to Fox Sports 1 on pit road. “It means a lot just to get a championship in Trans-Am and the lower levels of NASCAR starting out. It’s definitely really cool. We had a good year and I knew we just had to put it together here today. The whole (Pinnacle Racing Group) group’s done a really good job. It’s been a good year.”
There were five cautions for 55 laps and zero lead changes among one driver.
Official Race Results Following Bristol Motor Speedway
- Carson Brown, led all 200 laps
- Tristan McKee
- Kaden Honeycutt
- Max Reaves
- Isaac Kitzmiller
- Jake Bollman
- Jade Avedisian
- Andy Jankowiak
- Thomas Annunziata
- Taylor Mayhew, 1 Lap Down
- Jason Kitzmiller, 1 Lap Down
- Andrew Patterson, 1 Lap down
- Gavan Boschele, 1 Lap Down
- Ty Fredrickson, 1 Lap Down
- Gabriel Casagrande, 1 Lap Down
- Jackson McLerran, 4 Laps Down
- Craig Pellegrini Jr, 6 Laps Down
- Austin Vaughn, 8 Laps Down
- Brian Weber, 8 Laps Down
- Isabella Robusto, 12 Laps Down
- Alex Clubb, 16 Laps Down
- Chase Buscaglia, 18 Laps Down
- Jeff Maconi, 20 Laps Down
- Takuma Koga, 21 Laps Down
- Quinn Davis, 26 Laps Down
- Michael Maples, 38 Laps Down
- Ivis Earley, 50 Laps Down
- Jake Finch, OUT, Mechanical
- Con Nicolopoulos, OUT, Accident
- Zachary Tinkle, OUT, Accident
- Brad Smith, OUT, Mechanical
- Hunter Wright, OUT, Accident
- Bobby Earnhardt, OUT, Accident
- Brad Perez, OUT, Mechanical
- Nate Moeller, OUT, Mechanical
Up Next – The 2026 ARCA Menards Series season concludes next Friday night with the national championship at Kansas Speedway, live on Fox Sports 1 and MRN Radio at 8 p.m./ET. Bollman leads Annunziata by 16 points heading into the last event of the ARCA Menards Series season. The next ARCA Menards West Series race is next Saturday night at Madera Speedway, live on Flo Racing.
