{"id":16753,"date":"2018-04-27T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T17:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=16753"},"modified":"2018-04-28T12:25:23","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T17:25:23","slug":"arca-joins-nascar-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/27\/arca-joins-nascar-family\/","title":{"rendered":"ARCA joins NASCAR family"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Ron Drager, President of ARCA, Lesa France Kennedy, Vice Chairperson and ISC Chief Executive Officer and Jim France, Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President of NASCAR in Daytona Beach, Florida following the signing of the acquisition agreement on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. NASCAR photo<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 NASCAR<\/strong> announced Friday morning that it has acquired the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) Series<\/strong> after a 60-plus year relationship between the sanctioning bodies that started with NASCAR<\/a> Founder Bill France Sr. and ARCA founder John Marcum.<\/p>\n

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Ron Drager, President of ARCA, and Jim France, Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President, NASCAR, announce to media the signing of the acquisition agreement in Talladega Superspeedway on Friday, April 27. NASCAR photo<\/p><\/div>\n

NASCAR Vice Chairman Jim France joined Marcum\u2019s grandson, ARCA President Ron Drager, at Talladega Superspeedway Friday morning to formalize the announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur NASCAR family has long had a special connection with our friends at ARCA, and this is a logical step in demonstrating our commitment to the next generation of racers,\u2019\u2019 France said.<\/p>\n

Much of the future between the two series is possible because of their lengthy and successful past relationship. The two founders raced against one another before founding their respective governing bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur position in the industry over all these years \u2013 67 years \u2013 has been really intertwined with NASCAR,\u2019\u2019 Drager said. \u201cBefore there was a NASCAR, before there was an ARCA, there was a relationship between the Marcum and France families.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ron Drager, President of ARCA Racing Series talks to media about the new acquisition agreement between ARCA and NASCAR on Friday, April 27 at Talladega Superspeedway. NASCAR photo<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAnd over all these years and over all this period of time, we at ARCA have been fortunate to carve out a spot in the industry and to be able to be a constructive part of our sport. I think this is really just coming back full circle to where things started out. This provides ARCA with sustainability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all looking toward the future and trying to figure out where we need to be and how best to stabilize and come together to make the sport stronger. I think a coming-together is a good way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

ARCA will continue to operate under its current structure through the 2019 season. Details of the 2020 season and beyond will be forthcoming. But much of what makes this union appealing is the unique market ARCA has long served and making that part of the NASCAR umbrella.<\/p>\n

And Jim France, one of the crucial forces behind this new alliance, has proven himself a master of motorsports mergers. He brought together sportscar racing\u2019s GRAND-AM Road Racing and American Le Mans Series in 2012, creating a thriving and \u201cmodernized\u201d International Motor Sports Association (IMSA).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Credit: 355325NASCAR
Jim France, Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President, NASCAR, answers media questions about the new acquisition agreement between ARCA and NASCAR on Friday, April 27 at Talladega Superspeedway. NASCAR photo<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t many industries, particularly sports franchises or leagues, that support an industry the way the France family and Marcum-Drager family has. And for them to join forces and come back together after all these years, I think that\u2019s a compliment to not just their families, but a big message to motorsports participants, whether a car owner, crew member or participant, or fan,\u2019\u2019 NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton said. \u201cI think it shows that both of those families believe in the future of stock car racing and motorsports.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

For Drager, the future is about increased opportunity and the ability to feature the best of ARCA\u2019s offering in drivers, venues and competition. It currently has a schedule of 20 races, including nine events at NASCAR national event venues. This February was a historic event at Daytona International Speedway with Natalie Decker, 20, becoming the third woman in ARCA\u2019s long history to win a pole at Daytona. The race was won by a former \u201cNASCAR Next\u201d driver, Michael Self.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship is truly seven decades, and so as you wind on down the road and build relationships over an extended period of time, this was always a very natural relationship, something that just eventually made sense to formalize,\u2019\u2019 Drager said. \u201cThere was really no timeline on it. I think it\u2019s just something that just very gradually and very naturally happened.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Media Center Interview – <\/h3>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/NASCAR_ARCA_Announcement_042718.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 NASCAR announced Friday morning that it has acquired the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) Series after a 60-plus year relationship between the sanctioning bodies that started with NASCAR Founder Bill France Sr. and ARCA founder John Marcum. NASCAR Vice Chairman Jim France joined Marcum\u2019s grandson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[586,16],"class_list":["post-16753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-arca","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/TSS_France_Drager_Acquisition_Announcement_042718.jpg?fit=1800%2C1200","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-4md","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16763,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753\/revisions\/16763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}