- Tristan McKee became the youngest champion in series history when he locked up the 2026 ARCA Menards Series East title with a second-place finish in Thursday’s Bush’s Beans 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Driving for Pinnacle Racing Group, McKee won four of the series’ eight races in 2026 with wins at Hickory Motor Speedway, Rockingham Speedway, Toledo Speedway, and Iowa Speedway. Additionally, he had two runner-up finishes at Flat Rock Speedway and Bristol. McKee was 16 years, one month, and 14 days of age when he clinched the title, making him nearly two months younger than Sam Mayer who was 16 years, 3 months, and 8 days of age when he locked up the 2019 crown.
- Max Reaves earned the 2026 ARCA Menards Series East Bounty Rookie Challenge rookie of the year award. Reaves, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, scored two victories at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and Flat Rock Speedway, and had the series’ best overall average finish at 5.0.
- McKee’s final margin over Reaves was just three points. The difference came down to bonus points: Reaves scored three more race points than McKee, but McKee racked up 22 bonus points to Reaves’ 16.
- McKee’s driver championship was matched by an owner’s title for Mark Webb and the No. 77 Pinnacle Racing Group team. PRG’s championship breaks the stranglehold on the top spot held by the No. 18 team, which had won the previous five owner’s titles with owners Coy Gibbs, Kyle Busch, and Joe Gibbs.
- Crew chief Kevin Reed, Jr. became the first to earn a championship in both the ARCA Menards East and ARCA Menards West. In addition to leading McKee’s efforts in 2026, he led Sean Hingorani to the 2023 West championship.
- Reaves also led more laps than anyone in the 2026 season with 471 laps at the front of the field. McKee was a close second with 463 laps in the lead.
- Reaves and the Joe Gibbs Racing team completed 1,321 of a possible 1,325 laps throughout the season for a 99.70% completion rate. Reaves finished two laps down at both Rockingham and Toledo, the only laps he didn’t complete all season. Defending ARCA Menards Series East champion Isaac Kitzmiller completed one fewer lap, 1,320, for a 99.62% completion rate. Kitzmiller’s only missed laps were also at Toledo where he finished five laps off the pace.
- Kitzmiller’s defense of the title fell short by 20 points but his performance throughout the season was stellar. He finished in the top ten in seven of eight starts, and more impressively, each of them was also in the top five. His only finish outside the top five was a 13th-place result at Toledo in May.
- Carson Brown, the other driver out of the Pinnacle Racing Group stable, would have been a sure contender for the season championship if not for missing the season opener at Hickory Motor Speedway. Brown won the finale at Bristol and finished second at both Rockingham and Iowa behind McKee. He also had a pair of third-place finishes at Toledo and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park and had an average finish of 5.43. Despite missing a race and forfeiting the first 50-point segment bonus, Brown finished seventh in the series standings.
- Craig Pellegrini, Jr. had an impressive rookie campaign driving for 1995 ARCA Menards Series champion Andy Hillenburg’s Fast Track High Performance Racing Team. Pellegrini, whose background was in dirt sprint cars before making the leap into stock cars, notched five top-ten finishes with a season-best sixth at Nashville to finish fourth in the season standings.
- Jackson McLerran leapfrogged into the top five in the final standings in the final race of the season when Quinn Davis was swept into an early race accident and finished outside the top twenty. McLerran, driving for Mark Noble’s MAN Motorsports team, finished in the top ten four times with a season best sixth at Rockingham and a trio of eighth-place finishes at Hickory, Nashville, and Flat Rock.
- Reigning Bounty Rookie of the Year Austin Vaughn transitioned from his family-owned team to the Michael Maples Motorsports operation in 2026 and ended the season sixth in the final standings. Vaughn scored a pair of top-ten finishes, a tenth at Hickory and a seventh at Flat Rock.
- Quinn Davis entered the finale at Bristol fifth in the series standings but was struck by misfortune early when she was involved in an accident in front of her she could not avoid. Davis became the sixth female driver in series history to earn a top-five finish with her fifth-place finish at Flat Rock Speedway in August.
- Kaden Honeycutt earned his first career ARCA Menards Series East victory in July at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. He joined McKee and Brown as first-time series winners. With Brown’s victory at Bristol, a total of 136 drivers have won at least one ARCA Menards Series East race dating back to 1987.
- Reaves and Brown each scored three Sioux Chief PowerPEX Pole Awards in 2026. Reaves won poles at Hickory, Nashville, and Toledo, while Brown scored poles at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Flat Rock, and Bristol. McKee scored the other two poles at Rockingham and Toledo.
- A total of 71 drivers made at least one ARCA Menards Series East start in 2026.
- A total of 53 teams made at least one ARCA Menards Series East start in 2026.
- An average of 27.2 cars entered the eight races in 2026, up from 24.75 in 2025. The highest was 35 at Bristol, while the fewest was 21 at Flat Rock.
- There were a total of 46 cautions in the eight races for an average of 5.75 per race. The most was nine at Hickory while the fewest was three at Flat Rock.
- A total of 342 of the season’s 1,325 laps were run under yellow, an average of 42.75 per race. The most was 60 at Toledo, while the fewest was 29 at Flat Rock.
About ARCA
The Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), founded in 1953 by John and Mildred Marcum in Toledo, Ohio, and acquired by NASCAR in April 2018, is the leading grassroots stock car sanctioning body in the United States. Bridging the gap between NASCAR’s top three national touring series and weekly and regional tour racing all across the country, the organization to sanctions over 100 races per year in the ARCA Menards Series, ARCA Menards Series East, ARCA Menards Series West, ASA STARS National Tour, ASA CRA Super Series, ASA Midwest Tour, ASA Southern Super Series plus weekly racing at Toledo and Flat Rock Speedways. For more information about ARCA visit , or follow ARCA on Facebook (@ARCARacing) and Twitter (@ARCA_Racing).
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