By: Mitchell Breuer

One driver who will be a favorite to win a lot of races when the ARCA Menards Series returns to action at Talladega Superspeedway is Michael Self.

Unlike a lot of his competitors, he has a lot of experience to benefit him as the drivers get accustomed to the changed schedule. This is something he and his No. 25 Venturini Motorsports team will hope to take advantage of.

“I look at the track that I know we are racing at coming up; Talladega, Pocono, Charlotte, Kansas, those are all places I have a lot of experience at,” Self said.“When you talk about limiting practice and qualifying, for a guy like me at Charlotte for example, I’m like ‘yes, let’s do it, let’s lineup and go at Charlotte’ because the reality is I’m probably going to have a lot more laps than the majority of the field and Charlotte is a really tough racetrack as far as intermediates go, that’s probably the most difficult one. For me it’s kind of exciting to know I have a little more experience than my closest competitors do.”

The 29-year-old will also have an advantage in the strong start that he had when the season began in February. Self began the year with a dominant win at Daytona International Speedway, leading 61 of 80 laps (important to note,Self confirmed that the team will be bringing the same car to Talladega). The driver of the No. 25 then followed the victory with a second-place finish at Phoenix Raceway.

Self says a lot of the team’s early success has a lot to do with the relationship between him and his new crew chief this season, Kevin Reid, who he had previously worked with in 2018.

“I think the chemistry with me and Kevin Reid is really good,” Self said. “I think Kevin and I have always had a really strong driver/crew chief relationship. I’ve always enjoyed working with Kevin and have got a lot of confidence with him on the box. We know how to work with each other and there is never a question in my mind with Kevin crew chiefing.”

Another factor that Self credits his improvement as a driver to is his ability to better handling his feelings when racing.

“I learned a lot last year about just managing my emotions a little bit more when things don’t go right or when things get a little bit of track,” Self said. “I think that came into play at Phoenix to help us rebound and, that is something that I am going to continue to work on as this year goes on.”

With a lot of confidence and momentum, it will be interesting to see if Self is able to capitalize as the season resumesas he chases his first ARCA Menards Series Championship.