ELKO, Minn. — The ARCA Menards Series will take on its second consecutive short track race in Saturday’s Shore Lunch 250 Presented by Dutch Boy at Elko Speedway. the 0.375-mile track is the shortest track on the series’ schedule.
The Shore Lunch 250 Presented by Dutch Boy will be the 12th ARCA Menards Series race at Elko Speedway and the 12th time the series has raced in the state of Minnesota. No driver has won twice.
Previous winners at Elko include Brennan Poole (2012), Frank Kimmel (2013), Grant Enfinger (2014), Austin Theriault (2017), Gus Dean (2018), Chandler Smith (2019), Corey Heim (2021), Sammy Smith (2022), Jesse Love (2023), William Sawalich (2024) and Max Reaves (2025). Reaves (No. 18 Cook Out Toyota) is the only driver to score his first career series win at Elko Speedway, and is the only former winner entered.
Defending Shore Lunch 250 Presented by Dutch Boy winner Reaves’s Joe Gibbs Racing team has won five times this season and comes to Elko on a three-race win streak.
Reaves won last Saturday at Berlin Raceway for his first victory of the season while four-time winner Gio Ruggiero won three weeks ago at Michigan International Speedway and two weeks ago at Pocono Raceway.
Ruggiero also won the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway and at Kansas Speedway in May.
• Jake Bollman (No. 20 Nitro Motorsports Toyota) leads the ARCA Menards Series championship point standings by 18 points over his Nitro Motorsports teammate Thomas Annunziata (No. 70 JBL Toyota) headed into the Shore Lunch 250 Presented by Dutch Boy. Bollman scored his only career ARCA Menards West victory last season at Colorado National Speedway, a track very similar in length and layout to Elko Speedway.
• Pinnacle Racing Group will welcome a familiar face to its driver lineup when Landon Huffman (No. 28 PRG Chevrolet) climbs aboard at Elko. Although Huffman will be making his ARCA Menards Series debut, he’s no stranger to the team; his father Shane is the team’s general manager.
The younger Huffman has made two starts this season in the ARCA Menards East for CR7 Motorsports and was in contention for the victory at Hickory Motor Speedway before late-race contact resulted in a spin and an eventual sixth-place finish. He rebounded nicely in his next start, finishing second at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
Huffman will be joined by Taylor Reimer (No. 77 FRE Nicotine Pouches Chevrolet) in the PRG stable at Elko. Reimer is making her second consecutive start; she finished fourth last Saturday at Berlin Raceway.
• Isabella Robusto (No. 55 Yahoo! Toyota) hopes to use the summer stretch of short track races to close the gap in the ARCA Menards Series championship standings. She enters Elko trailing her Nitro Motorsports teammates Bollman and Annunziata by 50 and 32 points respectively.
Robusto is a short-track specialist, having gained much of her pre-ARCA Menards Series experience racing Late Model Stock Cars on short tracks across the southeast. She has two previous starts at Elko Speedway; she finished fourth in 2024 and followed it with a fifth-place run in 2025.
• Home state favorite Ty Fredrickson (No. 25 Distinctive Design & Build / CFG Retirement / Viking Mat Company Toyota) will make his second career ARCA Menards Series start and his first since he finished fourth in his series debut, also at Elko, in 2025. Fredrickson is the son of former ASA Midwest Tour champion Dan Fredrickson.
• While Willie Mullins (No. 3 CW Metals / Bugsy’s Repair Ford) hails from Fredericksburg, Virginia, he counts the Shore Lunch 250 Presented by Dutch Boy as a home race for he and his team. Mullins’ wife Dinah is a Minnesota native, having grown up two and a half hours north of Elko in Brainerd.
• Justin Haley holds the ARCA Menards Series track qualifying record at Elko Speedway, set in 2014, at 14.282 seconds/94.525 miles per hour.
• Brennan Poole holds the ARCA Menards Series track race record at Elko Speedway, set in a 200-lap race in 2012, at 74.090 mph.
