Sanchez goes for triple in ARCA Kansas Lottery 150 at Kansas Speedway this weekend

Nick Sanchez will be shooting for his third straight win at Kansas Speedway when the Menards ARCA series makes its second stop of the season at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Only 10-time series champion Frank Kimmel has won three ARCA races at the track, which opened in 2001. Current Cup playoff contender Alex Bowman won back-to-back in 2011-12.

Here are five drivers to watch in the Kansas Lottery 150:

Sammy Smith, No. 18 Toyota

Smith, 18, has three wins this season and leads the series with a dominant 2.65 average finish in 11 starts. He missed four races on big tracks early in the season, including the May 14 race at Kansas because he hadn’t turned 18.

Nick Sanchez, No. 2 Chevrolet

Sanchez, 21, is the current ARCA Menards Series championship points leader. He has won at Talladega, Kansas and Michigan this season. Sanchez, of Miami, Fla., overhauled Ty Gibbs with two laps to go to win last fall’s race; and he edged Rajah Caruth by 0.775 seconds last May.

Rajah Caruth, No. 6 Chevrolet

Caruth, the first Black driver to own the points lead earlier this season, is currently third in the standings. Caruth, of Washington, D.C., is still looking for first career win, but he has come close, with the runner-up finish at Kansas in May, among six top-five finishes.

Daniel Dye, No. 43 Chevrolet

Dye, 18, won at Berlin (Michigan) Raceway in 2021 in just his second series start but has been winless since. He’s currently second in points and leads the series with 13 top-10 finishes in 15 starts, including third at Kansas.

Corey Heim, No. 20 Toyota

Heim, 20, is an eight-time ARCA winner, having won his first series race at Kansas Speedway in 2020. Heim, of Marietta, Ga., finished second in the 2021 championship standings with six wins. Heim has won two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races this year, at Atlanta and Gateway, for Kyle Busch Motorsports.

This story was originally published September 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.