IRP recap ... Another “What Could Have Been” … But Another Big Step Forward

Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park was another completely new track for Landon, and despite losing valuable practice time almost immediately, he picked it up remarkably quickly.

Unfortunately, practice got complicated from the start.

Landon’s radio communications came unplugged while he was on track, leaving him unable to hear the team. He knew he needed to come in, but IRP presented a very different pit-road situation than he had experienced before. With the NASCAR Truck Series competing alongside ARCA that weekend, the trucks were using the traditional pit road while the ARCA cars were required to enter the pit area through an access opening on the backstretch.

Without radio communication and trying to get off the racetrack, Landon missed the designated ARCA entrance and entered pit road instead — something drivers had specifically been instructed not to do during the drivers meeting.

The result was a 10-minute practice penalty.

For a driver who had never turned a race lap at IRP, losing that much practice time was especially costly. But once Landon was finally able to get back on track, he adapted quickly and began posting some of the fastest laps among the cars running at that point in the session.

A Huge Jump in Qualifying

Heading into qualifying, Landon found another six-tenths of a second over his previous best lap.

The result was a 14th-place qualifying effort out of 34 cars, only about half a second off the pole.

Considering the limited practice time and the fact that this was his first race at IRP, it was a fantastic start to the evening.

When the green flag dropped, everything initially went according to plan. Landon settled into a comfortable gap and started logging laps, continuing to gain experience and confidence in the car.

Then a caution came out — and an old problem returned.

The Electrical Gremlins Return

This was the same race car Landon drove at Nashville, and unfortunately the electrical problems we experienced there resurfaced at IRP.

Fortunately, the team had installed a second battery that ultimately helped get the car running again. Unfortunately, by the time everything was sorted out, Landon had lost two laps.

Once again, we found ourselves behind the eight ball because of an electrical issue.

Landon fell all the way to 32nd place.

And this is probably where I learned as much about Landon as I did anywhere else during the night.

He was completely unfazed.

I wish I could say the same about myself.

As his dad, I was tremendously frustrated. Three ARCA races in a row, three races where Landon had shown good speed and the potential for a strong finish, and three races where circumstances outside of simply driving the race car had put us in a hole.

There is also no getting around the financial side of racing at this level. A tremendous amount of money goes into every opportunity, and when you only have the resources to run a handful of races, every one of them matters.

At that moment, I was beside myself.

Landon handled it considerably better than I did.

From 32nd Back to 18th

He put his head down and went to work.

For the remainder of the night, Landon drove the car as hard as he could and had probably the best sustained racing experience he has had so far in an ARCA car.

From 32nd, he worked his way all the way back to an 18th-place finish.

We simply never got enough cautions — or enough remaining laps — to have an opportunity to regain the two laps we lost.

The frustrating part is that, once again, the finishing position doesn't tell the entire story.

Based on the lap times Landon was running once the car was back underway, we believe he had the speed to race somewhere around the top 10 to 11 cars that night.

But racing doesn't grade you on potential.

The stat sheet says 18th.

And when you're trying to build a racing career, those statistics matter.

Every race in which you have the speed to produce a strong result but aren't able to capitalize on it feels like a missed opportunity — particularly when the cost of competing in the ARCA Series means we can't simply come back and race again the following week.

The Most Important Part of the Night

There was something different about IRP, though.

When Landon climbed out of the car after the race, he was all smiles.

I wasn't.

But seeing how excited he was about the racing he had just done changed my perspective pretty quickly.

He had raced hard. He had passed cars. He had battled in traffic. He had become considerably more comfortable with what an ARCA car will do, what he can ask from it and how aggressively he can race it.

His confidence took another major step forward.

That matters.

There will always be a “what could have been” attached to Nashville, Chicagoland and Indianapolis Raceway Park.

At Nashville, we showed top-10 speed before an electrical failure ended our night.

At Chicagoland, an early fuel contamination issue dropped us to the rear before Landon fought his way back to 15th.

At IRP, another electrical problem dropped us to 32nd and two laps down before Landon drove back to 18th.

The finishing positions haven't yet reflected the speed or progress we've seen on the racetrack.

But the progress is real.

And Landon is unquestionably a much better and much more confident ARCA driver today than he was when we started this journey.

One More Chapter

Fortunately, Landon's 2026 ARCA story isn't quite finished.

He has one more great opportunity coming later this season — one that we haven't announced yet.

It's an opportunity we certainly didn't expect when this season began, and it's one we're extremely excited about.

We'll have more to share about that soon.

After that, our attention turns toward 2027: figuring out what opportunities make sense, finding businesses that believe in Landon and want to partner with us to help make those opportunities possible, and finding the right situation necessary to turn what we've seen on the stopwatch into the results Landon is capable of producing.

There are still a lot of unknowns about where this journey goes.

But after watching Landon climb out of the car smiling at IRP, one thing was pretty clear:

He's ready for more.