Jason Kitzmiller wants to run ARCA part-time and be competitive

CR7 Motorsports will field Grant Enfinger full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series as well as the No. 97 car part-time in the ARCA Menards Series. Though he will only make 46 starts in the series, the organization has strengthened its commitment with the hiring of Frank Kimmel as its ARCA crew chief for 2024.

Kimmel, of course, is the ARCA GOAT, leading the series in many statistical categories, including championships. [10] And victory [80].

“It certainly seems to help,” CR7 ARCA driver Jason Kitzmiller said. Front Stretch “It's going well,” he said before the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “He's hit the ground running and has a schedule of ARCA and Grand National Super Series races and is happy with how things are going.”

Despite only running three of the first six races in the 2024 ARCA season, Kitzmiller is pleased with his performance.

“It's been good,” he said, “I didn't run very well at Talladega Superspeedway because of the radiator. I was sixth at Daytona International Speedway. I got hit on the third lap, so that wasn't good, but we were able to take what we had and finish well. This is only my third race, so we're just seeing where we stand tonight.”

“I didn't do as well as I would have liked in qualifying, but there's still a lot of racing to do.”

Kitzmiller started 15th and finished ninth at Charlotte, his sixth top 10 in 25 starts. The CR7 is yet to win in ARCA. In 46 races, the team has two top-five finishes (both by Enfinger in 2023) and 14 top-10s.

Enfinger competed in an ARCA race at Phoenix Raceway, albeit with a different team, and does not currently have plans to return to an ARCA race car.

Kitzmiller is expected to compete in three or four more ARCA races in '24, with guaranteed appearances at Michigan International Speedway and the Kansas Speedway event in the fall.

Additionally, Landen Lewis will pilot the No. 97 car at Bristol Motor Speedway. Lewis competed for BMS as part of the team last year but finished 20th before retiring.

Though the team doesn't have the financial muscle of top teams like Joe Gibbs Racing or Venturini Motorsports, Kitzmiller feels good about the program, and it helps that he and team owner Cody Lohrbaugh have a family-like relationship.

“Cody treats us fairly,” Kitzmiller added. “He's my nephew-in-law. Time is a factor, money is a factor. You can't complain about the way we're treated. We like to compete and we try to compete.”

The team uses Ilmor engines in their ARCA cars and all of their trucks and ARCA cars are built in the same factory. The reason the team hasn't competed in as many ARCA races is because Enfinger is hoping to make it into the Truck Series playoffs.

Kimmel's joining the organization is no coincidence. He's known Enfinger's crew chief, Jeff Stankiewicz, for years. “There's a long history there,” Kitzmiller said. Stankiewicz previously worked for Kimmel, and it was one of Stankiewicz's first jobs.

Long term, Kitzmiller plans to have his son, Isaac Kitzmiller, take the reins of the No. 97 car. Isaac turns 17 on Feb. 25, 2024, so he could be racing full-time in ARCA early next year. But Jason said father and son racing together in ARCA is still a few years away.

“Timing is important to us,” he continued. “He [Isaac] He does a full Legends schedule. He's in the Team Hornaday Development Plan. He did 62 or 66 races last year, so I scheduled my races around his. For us, we want to race at the big race tracks, cost-wise, to get a better value for money. You know, the cost of running Charlotte is not that different from the cost of running Berlin, so I want to run Charlotte.”

ARCA has received criticism for prize money, but increasing the prize money is not going to encourage CR7 to attend more ARCA races.

“The costs are pretty much the same,” Kitzmiller said. “You have travel costs, you have equipment costs, you have labor costs. It's just not cheap. Not many people make money from racing. I'm sure some team owners make a decent amount, maybe some Cup drivers, but doing it yourself is just not a good investment.”