This is really really stupid...
That's not many events...especially compared to the top competing tours like CARS, ACT, PASS. How do you attract cars that will only run a "season" of 6-8 races? You can race more in the Invitational...but that's a lot of driving out of your region potentially.
Arca really shines at stand-alone events. The races at the NASCAR tracks that run on Thursdays or Fridays are laughable until they're dangerous...hence "Arca brakes". They should really be at the short tracks more, imo.
Making competitors compete in a minimum number of events is a recipe for low car counts. And taking cars out of their region to get to these elite events? That's a lot of travel the K&N teams won't want to do.
This is good and bad. If Arca drivers are required to be 18+ it will certainly clean up some of the events at the bigger tracks. But it also makes Arca the land for the woulda-coulda-shoulda drivers who couldn't get into an Xfinity or Truck ride at 18 or 19.
I heard a lot of rumors of ARCA and the east series merging (including from 1 insider), so i'm pretty happy with how they are handling this.
8 East and 8 west races sounds pretty bad and i'm not thrilled by it (especially by the west series, i love those short tracks out there. I'm not too excited by the east series schedule this year since its mostly at fairly large NASCAR tracks anyway, i prefer the races at the local short tracks more), but you have to look at the car counts they have been having recently. The west series had 13 cars in at Douglas County Speedway in Oregon. The east series had 13 or 14 at Thompson. At some of the bigger (And long time events going back to the North series) events such as Dover and New Hampshire II, they had only 17 cars. Look at what happened to the Whelen Southern Modified Tour when they started having 12 or 13 cars at most events, they killed it off. Better that they shorten up the schedule than kill off the series or merge them somehow.
Based on the press release, K&N will only go to tracks less than 1 mile. So, events like New Hampshire and Dover will either become ARCA races or will just be gone.
I'm guessing tracks that currently host both series like Gateway and Iowa will just become ARCA races. I could see Memphis becoming an ARCA race as well.
The press release only referenced ovals. No mention of road courses, but i can't see the west series getting rid of Sonoma, etc... So i'm sure those will fit into the schedule somewhere...
I agree that ARCA is best at the stand alone short track races, however if ARCA didn't go to places like Daytona, Michigan, Pocono, etc... then what makes ARCA different from K&N? The diversity of the schedule is what makes ARCA unique. Those events also allow drivers who only have experience on short tracks get experience at the big tracks before moving up to trucks and Xfinity! I would hate to see that completely gone from ARCA.
They mention requiring a minimum number of races ran for the "Stock Car Invitational", but i'm guessing that is just required of cars intended on competing for the 10 race stock car invitational championship. Those 10 stock car invitational races are also part of the regular ARCA 20 race season, so i'm sure anyone that just wants to run a random race that is within the invitation can, but won't be earning points for the stock car invitational, they would just get regular ARCA points.
Thats just how i interpret it, i could be wrong though.
About the age requirement... as far as I know, ARCA drivers need to be 18 to race at the tracks larger than a mile under current ARCA rules anyway. So thats not really a change
