History has proven that the NASCAR Cup Series doesn’t go well with dirt tracks. Dirt races were extremely common in the early years of the series, from 1949 to 1970. Following Richard Petty’s victory in the last original dirt race in 1970, the track type went away for good. After a 51-year absence, it returned to the show in 2021 with the Bristol Dirt Race.
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For three years, the NASCAR Cup Series raced on the dirt track at the Bristol Motor Speedway. But several issues marred the experience for drivers and fans, leading the sanctioning body to shut it down after 2023. Unlike this lackluster romance, the ARCA Menards Series and dirt tracks have always carried a strong affinity for each other.
ARCA, founded in 1953, followed a similar path to NASCAR in its early years. Many of the races were on short track ovals and dirt fairgrounds tracks. It ran dirt races regularly through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s as well. Since then, it has consistently hosted two dirt races every season on one-mile fairgrounds tracks.
The first race goes down at the Illinois State Fairgrounds and the second at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds. These races often go down late in the summer and draw big crowds from the local areas nearby. Interestingly, many NASCAR drivers, including Ken Schrader, Tony Stewart, and Justin Allgaier, have participated in these races.
The most recent ARCA Menards dirt race winner
The race at the Illinois State Fairgrounds went down this weekend. 17-year-old Brent Crews continued his dirt track dominance and won the event, holding a multi-second lead throughout the race. The result marked his third dirt track win in the ARCA Menards Series. The only race he did not win was the 2023 Southern Illinois 100 at DuQuoin, where he finished as the runner-up.
He told Fox Sports 1 in Victory Lane, “This is one of my favorite races on the schedule… I’ve had a lot of success on the dirt.” These two races, at Illinois and DuQuoin, have been held together in every season since 1983. The promotion sees them as having a direct connection to the foundation of the sport.
The words of ARCA president Ron Drager throw the deserved light on them: “There are thousands of race fans in the heartland of the country who attend those races, and many have been coming to them for decades. Having dirt races has kept us connected to the grassroots of the sport, and it has meant a driver who can win the ARCA Menards Series championship has to succeed on a wide variety of racetracks.”
