After nearly a decade of extending its race-winning pedigree into the ARCA Menards Series, Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), the only NASCAR Cup Series team with a direct line to ARCA, is shuttering its program at season’s end, the championship-winning organization tells JosephSrigley.com.
The No. 18 Toyota Camry will hit the track one final time on October 17 at Phoenix Raceway.
Steve DeSouza, Executive Vice President of O’Reilly Series and Development for Joe Gibbs Racing, told JosephSrigley.com on Wednesday that the “really difficult decision” was made as the organization reallocates its resources to focus on making a significant step forward in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, where it put only two of its four full-time entries in the Chase this season.
“At the end of the day, we made a really difficult decision to close the [ARCA Menards Series] program at the end of the season,” said DeSouza. “As we went through the evaluation of this year, and as we start to plan for 2027, we just determined it was important to place our focus, and the resources we have available, on making significant improvements across our O’Reilly Series program. It’s pretty obvious we’ve been struggling there a little bit, and we need to really ramp that back up.”
Joe Gibbs Racing will, once again, field four full-time entries in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2027 with drivers William Sawalich (No. 18), Brent Crews (No. 19), Brandon Jones (No. 20), and Taylor Gray (No. 54).
The shuttering of the ARCA Menards Series program marks the end of a period of eight seasons in nine years where Gibbs was the team to beat in the ARCA Menards Series, beginning in 2017. Since returning to ARCA, Joe Gibbs Racing has collected more than 50 victories in ARCA’s National Division with drivers Riley Herbst, Ty Gibbs, Brandon Jones, William Sawalich, Connor Mosack, Tanner Gray, Brent Crews, Max Reaves, and Gio Ruggiero.
With the iconic No. 18, Joe Gibbs Racing’s ARCA Menards Series program collected four Driver’s Championships across the platform’s three series, winning the National Series title with Ty Gibbs in 2021 and the ARCA East Championship with Sammy Smith that same year. William Sawalich also won back-to-back East Series championships in the No. 18 in 2023 and 2024.
The organization also won four Owner’s Championships in ARCA: 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2026.
This year, in what will go down as its final ARCA Menards Series season, Joe Gibbs Racing won eight races between drivers Gio Ruggiero and Max Reaves and beat Pinnacle Racing Group by eight points for the Owner’s Championship.
As for Reaves, who signed on as a Joe Gibbs Racing Development Driver in February 2024, DeSouza says the development deal, with the closure of the team’s ARCA Menards Series program, is “on pause”, but that the organization will assist the Reaves family in figuring out what is next for the 16-year-old driver with seven ARCA wins.
“Obviously [Reaves’ development deal] is on pause, with us not running ARCA,” DeSouza said. “But, on the same token, we really love Max [Reaves] and the Reaves family. We’re really good friends with them and are trying to – we’ll help them in however we can, but we’re just not going to be running the ARCA program, and so there’s a lot of different options that are opening up. This is relatively new to all of us, and a lot of interested people, and people with questions are calling, so there’s a number of things that could play out here, and obviously, some of it will involve the Reaves’ if they want it.”
“We’re just taking it day-by-day and call-by-call and trying – we’ve determined what we need to do as a company and corporation for the best interest in the resources that we have available to us for our programs. That decision has been made, but going forward, the decision with the equipment and things like that is still to be determined.”
The penultimate event of the ARCA Menards Series West campaign at Phoenix Raceway on October 17 will mark the end of an era, as one of the most dominant ARCA teams in recent history runs its last race.
PHOTO: Jonathan McCoy, TobyChristie.com
