By: Ashley McCubbin

After completing the ARCA Racing Series season with three consecutive top-10 finishes, Brayton Laster will return in 2024 with Terry Carroll Motorsports as one of the 50 drivers trying to qualify for the season opener at Daytona International Speedway. The Pizza Man shared his thoughts going into the event and more with NEWS FROM THE PITS.

What are your thoughts as you look ahead to the 2024 ARCA Racing Series season?

So I am really excited. We’re working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes, and plan on making as much as an impact this year as I can make. We’re planning on coming out pretty big and swinging pretty big. We’re going for hopefully all the marbles. Like I said, we’re still working on stuff behind the scenes, but we’re going to try to put together a decent schedule running the majority of the races for a competitive season.

With that said, I am really excited. I get to run all different kinds of tracks. Last year, we ran dirt tracks, Iowa, IRP (Indianapolis Raceway Park), and we ran Charlotte (Motor Speedway), but outside of Charlotte, we never got intermediate track experience. That’s one thing that I was really hurting was that I didn’t have that. So looking at the intermediate tracks on there, we’ve got them circled and hopefully we’re able to put a deal together and hit a majority of the races  – that would be pretty sweet. I’m excited.

Obviously we’ve got the pre-season test at Daytona (International Speedway) out of the way. What are your thoughts as you look back on how the test went?

Oh, we actually didn’t do the test this year.

My bad – I apologize.

No, no you’re fine. So with a new team, Terry Carroll Motorsports, this year, and they are putting a brand new set-up – they’re dropping a new motor in, new driveline, they are going top of the line with a brand new body on this car. It’s a pretty solid piece that they’re doing everything right and just wasn’t able to get it quite done for the test, at least the way that we would’ve wanted to do it.

We wanted to make sure that everything was done right. So we skipped the test this year to have it right for the race, and we’re still pretty excited. They’re taking it to the pull dyno, chassis dyno, just making sure everything is good at that end. But I think we’ll have a pretty decent piece come race time.

So what are your goals for Daytona this year, knowing you’re going to have this new piece underneath you?

You always want to go to Daytona and bring the car home in one piece – that’s priority number one. I’m not a big wrecker guy. I just want to bring the car home in one piece. The guys just put a ton of work into it, and I hate tearing up equipment like that especially at superspeedway. So bringing the car home in one piece is my first goal. Outside of that, if we can finish anywhere in the top-10, I think that’s a win for us.

Obviously we’re going to go for a win. We’re going to go as hard as we can, but I’m not going to try and tear up equipment going for a win. But if we’re that close, I feel like we might squeeze into the hole more than we should and try to steal a win. But I think bringing home the car in one piece with a top-10, everyone is going to be excited about that.

You mentioned last season, and getting to run multiple races. What did it mean to complete that run with basically three consecutive top-10’s highlighted by the ninth at Salem (Speedway).

Yeah, that was insane. So we pretty thought our season was done after Daytona last year. We ran Daytona with the Mullins for the second year in a row, kind of went our separate ways, and I didn’t know when I’d race again. So it was like, “Well, this has been fun. This has been good. This has been great,” and I was still going to the tracks though mainly with Fast Track (Racing) as I’m good friends with Zachary Tinkle. I was going and helping him out however I could and that got me in the door with Andy Hillenburg.

We were at Dover (International Speedway), and Andy came up to me and said, “Brayton, are you available possibly to do some races for us for a couple weekends?” I said, “Yeah, Andy. What’s it going to take?” He said, “Nothing – just get yourself in and drive our cars and get some points and not tear the car up.” I said, “Yeah, sweet, sure.” So we did a few races for Andy – IRP, Iowa, had a career best qualifying there at Iowa. I think we qualified 13^th – that was a real strong field. We had pace at almost every track that we went to.

Then we got the offer from RISE Motorsports to go there and they reached out to me to run the two dirt races. I was kind of shocked because I didn’t expect – I’ve never really expected a team owner to reach out to me based off of the fact that you’re a driver that can get the most of lower-tier equipment and bring a car home in first piece. I never expected to happen once, let alone twice. So when they reached out to me, I was very grateful.

We went to Springfield, had some overheating problems, still got a top-10 finish and that was so exciting for myself, my career, and everyone on the team. That was the team’s first top-10 finish on the main series as well. Then went to DuQuion (Fairgrounds) and backed it up with another top-10 run. Basically had some problems there, but still got a top-10.

Salem was all the marbles. I’m from Indianapolis so an hour or so north of Salem – been going there a lot watching. We qualified 11^th or 12^th there I believe, so that was pretty sweet to qualify real close to the top-10. We had some overheating problems, again, but we were able to continue through the whole race, showed really good pace, and for my first time there and to get a ninth-place finish, it made the season after starting it with almost no deal in place.

To run seven races, I think, in the main platform was a dream come true. To even be somewhat competitive and to get top-10’s for teams that aren’t normally inside the top-10 bracket was real spectacular for me in my career, because not very often do you get opportunities like that, and rarely do you make the most of them.

If you could pick a track that you haven’t been to yet in your career to put on the schedule for 2024, what track would that be?

I really, really want to run Bristol (Motor Speedway). I’ve never ran Bristol in general. I’ve always wanted to run there – like a late model, street stock, front wheel drive – I honestly thought I’d be racing there in that form. If we can put together a deal for Bristol, that would be pretty, pretty sweet. Hopefully we’re able to put something together but that’d be a dream come true. So definitely Bristol, or Flat Rock (Speedway). I feel like Flat Rock is a track that is my style. I come from the bullrings in the mid-west with short track racing so I love me a good short track like Flat Rock. I think it’d be real sweet to run.

Who do you consider your racing hero?

I’d probably have to say Jimmie Johnson. I’m a big Jimmie Johnson guy.