Thomas Annunziata was not supposed to leave Kansas Speedway as the NASCAR ARCA Menards Series champion. Not with Jake Bollman sitting 16 points ahead, not with Bollman needing only an 11th-place finish to shut the door, and certainly not after Annunziata had already convinced himself that the championship was gone. Then the two teammates had a heated on-track run-in. 

“Honestly, I gave up on the championship. I was gonna try to win the race and give myself the best opportunity, but, you know, we had a huge comeback in the middle of the year to bring back 30 points, just like a position point,” revealed Annunziata in a media availability shared by Kevin’s Happy Hour on X. 

Let’s get into the backstory now. Jake Bollman was at the top of the standings for almost the entirety of the 2026 NASCAR ARCA Menards Series season. He brought a 16-point lead into the finale, but it was Annunziata who relied on 11 top-five finishes and 18 top-10s across the 20-race season to close the gap. 

Annunziata had one crucial win at Lime Rock Park, meaning that when a chaotic race forced them into a dead heat in the final points standings, he secured the title on a tiebreaker over a winless but highly consistent Bollman.

So Annunziata stopped thinking of Kansas as a championship race. After telling his feelings about giving up, his plan also came to light: go win the race. He had even joked in the media center that Bollman could win the championship, he could win the race, and then the two Nitro Motorsports teammates could do donuts together.

That plan lasted about 16 laps. The two were racing for third when Bollman went underneath lapped traffic and used the apron entering Turn 1. He got into the corner lower and faster than he wanted; the No. 20 washed up the track and caught Annunziata’s No. 70. Both cars went sideways, but only one driver kept going. Annunziata spun below the apron while Bollman saved his Toyota and continued.

Bollman said afterward that he did not mean to hit his teammate. His explanation was that he was trying to get past the lapped car while keeping clear of Annunziata and simply entered the corner wrong.

That is an important distinction because the first contact was not established as an intentional move. But from Annunziata’s seat, the result was much clearer: he had been hit by the driver standing between him and the championship.

And suddenly, the ARCA championship was not the only thing on his mind. Annunziata had raced Bollman hard all season, and he later pointed to other incidents between the two, including their late-race fight at DuQuoin. He had already decided there was no point doing anything reckless at Kansas while Bollman was still in control of the title. Then Bollman spun him.

A few laps later, Annunziata caught him. The No. 70 moved back toward Bollman’s No. 20 on the frontstretch and made contact with its left-rear, sending Bollman spinning.

Annunziata later called it “an eye for an eye.” He also admitted that he misjudged the move, explaining that he could have gone around Bollman’s outside but instead went underneath to side-draft him.

That is where the Kansas finale became a teammate feud playing out in real time. Bollman recovered from the spin. He worked his way back toward the top 10 and eventually passed Annunziata on the track. Nitro Motorsports then warned Annunziata that another incident could result in the No. 70 being parked. For the moment, the fight settled down.

The championship, however, had not. Bollman was still in position to win it. Then, on Lap 41, the race changed without either championship contender touching the other. Will Kimmel spun in Turns 3 and 4, Bollman collided with him and Austin Vaughn then hit the No. 20.

Bollman’s Toyota was heavily damaged and went to the garage for repairs. He eventually returned 42 laps down. The crash had nothing to do with Annunziata, but it took the championship leader out of the running order that had protected his 16-point advantage.

That left Annunziata with something he had not expected when the green flag fell: a real championship opportunity. There was still plenty of work to do. Bollman managed to return to the track and climb to 21st, which meant Annunziata could not simply ride around and assume the title was his. Late in the race, Annunziata was running seventh when another caution came out. Crew chief Shannon Rursch called him to pit road for fresh tires and an adjustment, dropping him back to ninth for the final restart.

Now the championship came down to a handful of laps. Annunziata gained three positions immediately on the restart and then fought Andy Jankowiak for fifth. He got the position with five laps remaining and stayed there to the checkered flag. Carson Brown won the race, but Annunziata finished fifth. Bollman finished 21st.

The 16-point deficit was gone. Both drivers finished the season with exactly 947 points. That should have made the championship calculation complicated. Instead, it came down to one race from months earlier.

Annunziata had won at Lime Rock Park in July. Bollman had gone winless all season. Under the tiebreaker, that single victory belonged to Annunziata, and it gave him the 2026 ARCA Menards Series championship. It was the first time an ARCA championship had actually been decided by a tiebreaker.

That is what makes the Kansas story so strange. Annunziata’s title was not won by dominating the finale, but by surviving it. The driver who arrived 16 points behind, expecting to race for a trophy he no longer believed he could win, left Kansas as champion because the one win he had collected all season suddenly became more valuable.

But the points were not the only thing settled at Kansas. Bollman was furious after the race. He said he had apologized for the first contact and believed Annunziata’s retaliation crossed a line, saying he would not talk to his teammate again. Annunziata saw it differently. He acknowledged the second contact, but maintained that Bollman had gotten into him several times during the season and that he was not the reason Bollman ultimately lost the championship.

That leaves Nitro Motorsports with a rather awkward ending to a season that produced the team’s first ARCA championship. Its two championship contenders tied on points. One walked away with the trophy. The other walked away convinced his teammate had crossed a line.

And the driver who had already “given up” on the championship somehow ended the night with exactly what he had stopped expecting: a title, a tiebreaker, and one very uncomfortable teammate meeting waiting somewhere down the road.