Thomas Annunziata Wins ARCA Title on a Tiebreaker After His Teammate Crashes Out
Sixteen points behind Nitro Motorsports teammate Jake Bollman entering the finale, Annunziata finished fifth at Kansas after Bollman crashed, then took the crown on his lone win of the year.
Thomas Annunziata didn't win the ARCA Menards Series finale at Kansas Speedway on September 25, and for most of the night he wasn't on course to win the title either. He left as champion anyway, edging Nitro Motorsports teammate Jake Bollman on a tiebreaker after Bollman's championship ended in a crash he didn't cause.
The 21-year-old from Colts Neck, New Jersey, finished fifth in the Menards 150 in the No. 70 Toyota Camry. It's Nitro's first ARCA title and Toyota's third in six seasons, arriving the same week Toyota Gazoo Racing won the 6 Hours of Fuji and took the WEC points lead.
How the title flipped
Bollman arrived with a 16-point cushion and needed only a top-10 finish to clinch, no matter where Annunziata ended up. The teammates tangled twice early. First, Bollman slid up into Annunziata in Turn 1 while working around a lapped car. A lap after the restart, Annunziata spun Bollman on the frontstretch in what he described as a side draft gone wrong.
Neither contact settled it. Bollman recovered and was pulling away until Will Kimmel spun in Turn 3 directly in his path, and Austin Vaughn then slammed into the wreckage. Bollman returned to the track but could climb no higher than 21st.
Annunziata, nursing damage from the earlier contact, needed to stay inside the top seven. He passed Andy Jankowiak for fifth with six laps left while Carson Brown took the race win. That left the two Nitro drivers level on points, and the tie went to race wins. Annunziata had one, at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Bollman had none.
The finish didn't sit well with Bollman, who told ARCA he had no interest in talking to his teammate after the race. Annunziata countered that the aggression in their title fight had mostly run the other way.
A road racer who learned ovals fast
A road-course win deciding the title fits Annunziata's résumé. He came up in road racing, with wins in the Trans Am series, and only started racing ovals in 2023, according to ARCA. His oval education came quickly, helped by 1990 Daytona 500 winner Derrike Cope, whose O'Reilly Auto Parts Series team gave him a handful of starts in 2025.
The championship was built on consistency rather than wins. Toyota puts his season at 11 top-fives and 18 top-10s in 20 races, with an average finish of seventh. His only results outside the top 10 came at the drafting tracks of Daytona and Talladega, where he was caught in late wrecks.
“Sometimes fairytales happen,” Annunziata said after the race.
Toyota's ARCA run
Toyota teams won 11 of this year's 20 ARCA races, the automaker says. Annunziata becomes the ninth Toyota-affiliated ARCA champion, following Ty Gibbs in 2021 and Jesse Love in 2023.
His next step isn't set. Annunziata already has a NASCAR Truck Series start on his record, qualifying fourth at Lime Rock in Tricon Garage's No. 1 Tundra TRD Pro. ARCA reports his 2027 plans are still in flux, and Toyota's announcement says nothing about next season.
