Austin Green pulls away late, claims first ARCA Menards Series win at Charlotte

Following in his father’s footsteps, Austin Green is now a winner in the ARCA Menards Series with a great run at Charlotte. Pinnacle Racing Group is back on top in ARCA. This is only Green’s second start in the national series and his first in five years.

David Green won his first and only ARCA race at Nashville in 1992. Now, 24-year-old Austin Green gets the win at Charlotte. Green has impressed on road courses in recent years, but now he’s a winner on an oval.

Grant Enfinger tried to make a run on Green late, but he didn’t have enough laps. William Sawalich faded to fourth in this race with Lavar Scott passing him late for that third-place finish.

FIRST. WIN.@austingreen2_ gets it done at @CLTMotorSpdwy in just his second ARCA Menards Series start 🏁 pic.twitter.com/HtWEkOdihL

— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) May 23, 2025

This is a big breakthrough for Austin Green. We have seen him do very well on the road courses in the Xfinity Series. He has a top-10 at COTA and the Chicago Street Race. He finished P4 at Sonoma last season for Jordan Anderson Racing.

The oval starts in the Xfinity Series have not gone so well. To get the job done today against the ARCA field could be the beginning of something special.

Family heritage and history on the line, Austin Green got the job done tonight at Charlotte. He led the most laps, controlled the restarts even without great short-run speed. Let’s not forget that he outdueled William Sawalich multiple times tonight, a 13-time race winner in ARCA national series competition and two-time ARCA East champion.

While there was an early restart pileup from Cleetus McFarland in this race, it was mostly clean as far as ARCA goes.

Austin Green wins with multiple cars damaged early

There wasn’t a lot that Austin Green had to worry about late in this race. He had pulled away to an almost 3-second lead over Grant Enfinger by the end. Sawalich faded quite a bit in the closing laps. Which begs the question, are these ARCA starts hurting or helping Sawalich? I’d argue they are starting to do more harm than good.

Brenden “Butterbean” Queen blew a tire early and hit the wall. He stayed two laps down the rest of the night, unfortunately. He is likely the favorite to win the season championship as he has two wins already to his name in 2025 ARCA competition.

Queen’s incident didn’t cause a caution. But there was soon a debris caution that stopped the race. That is when Cleetus McFarland stayed out to gain track position. A bad decision with tires 30 laps old. He spun his tires on the ensuing restart and junked up a few good cars in the process, including Isabella Robusto.

Austin Green is the big winner tonight. He will be celebrating with his family and partying into the night, I’m sure.