Following Saturday afternoon’s ARCA Menards Series season opener at Daytona, an issue that was heavily discussed on social media and amongst those within the NASCAR industry was over driver approvals. Saturday’s Ride The Dente 200 featured seven caution flags, which took up 41.3% of the total race distance. The average green flag run was only 5.9 laps on average with the longest being 14 laps. Up until lap 50 of the race, only 20 out of the first 50 laps were run under green. While the racing product did tame out in the latter half of the race, and the last 15-20 laps were a decent watch, seeing drivers pulling out and making moves, which included the winning move from “Butterbean” Brenden Queen, it still couldn’t make up from the lackluster product of wrecking every few laps from earlier. Out of the field of 40, only 18 cars finished the race, with 13 on the lead lap. The number of wrecks and cautions throughout the race has raised concern over whether it’s too easy for drivers to be approved for racing in ARCA. While Denny Hamlin on Actions Detrimental suggested that ARCA should not be racing at Daytona and Talladega, there is a way you can make the racing product and driver etiquette better for the series: you make the approval process much stricter.

When analyzing the statistics of some drivers before making their ARCA Menards Series debut, some barely have much experience going in. Some pages of drivers seen on websites such as ThirdTurn.com, which covers thousands of local racing series’ and races held at local short and dirt tracks, don’t show much for some of these drivers, which has raised questions about how easy it is to get approved to race in ARCA. Some drivers have made as few as two or three starts in a late model or dirt car before receiving approval to run a race in the series. If you don’t have much of a professional racing resume, you shouldn’t be making a big jump to what is currently NASCAR’s 4th tier series in driver development. At a minimum, you should have at least 20 starts in a late model, dirt car, vintage car, or any series you run in that’s deemed a professional local racing series. This should also not include starting and parks or running very far off the pace at these starts. If you’re 15, 16, or 17, you should have to make 30 starts, knowing that you’re not as experienced as a driver. Getting your feet wet in a development series is one thing, but getting your feet wet in what is currently the 4th tier series of NASCAR with little to no prior experience in professional racing is a bad look.

Another change that could help ARCA in the long term with driver approvals is no longer allowing drivers to debut on superspeedways or intermediates. You would only be allowed to debut at a short track, road course, or dirt track under this rule. One method that could also help with this would be to hold a short track-specific test at a track later in the season, like how ARCA holds testing at Daytona and Kansas early in the season. Now, some exceptions could be made here, like if you’re a world-class driver such as Helio Castroneves or Shane Van Gisbergen, who have a resume too big to turn down. NASCAR also usually does not approve of drivers making their debuts at superspeedway races, for example James Davison in Cup at Talladega in 2020 or Keith McGee in Trucks at Talladega also in 2020. NASCAR also did not approve Mike Wallace to return for the 2025 Daytona 500 for similar reasons: he had not attempted a superspeedway race in 10 years and lacked activity. If you’re not an active racer, you shouldn’t be debuting at a superspeedway. You should be starting again at the short tracks and working your way up. If you’ve run well enough at the short tracks, you can get approved for the intermediates. If not, work on your race craft and get faster and better out there. The same situation applies to the intermediate races; if you run well enough at those tracks, you can get approved for the superspeedways, rinse, and repeat. The annual Daytona test for ARCA also should no longer be used for approvals at every track. At best, you can get approved for the short tracks as you’re not actively racing against others when testing. You’re not going two by two or three by three yet. Proper racing etiquette has to be presented on the shorter tracks before you should be allowed to run the larger tracks. Some of the accidents we saw on Saturday and in prior ARCA superspeedway races could’ve been avoided with stricter approvals like this.

In addition, ARCA has to also make it harder to keep your license. (This could also apply to NASCAR’s top 3 series.) If you’re constantly wrecking out, running far off the pace below minimum speed and getting in the way of the leaders constantly, or just having poor driver etiquette, you don’t belong out there. Depending on how egregious your case is, you should have your license demoted or stripped. This could easily help encourage drivers to be smarter out on the track and take things more seriously. If you want to improve as a driver, this should be put in place. If you’re struggling and have no intent to improve, you don’t belong out there.

ARCA cannot let what happened on Saturday happen ever again in the series. For the long-term future, make a much stricter approval process. The car counts may take a hit on the big tracks, but the series would be taken much more seriously in the long term, and it’d be easier to tell who belongs out on the track and who doesn’t. Even if you have a big check, you shouldn’t be exempt from approval processes. You deserve to be treated the same way as everyone else on track. Driver etiquette is one of the most important things as part of a race, and if you want your series to be taken more seriously long-term, only allow those willing to race with etiquette no matter how fast or slow they are.

Image Credit: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR