Still grieving the loss of his father less than a month ago, Greg Van Alst heads to Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway for Friday night’s General Tire 150 keeping his father’s spirit alive and focusing on earning his second top-five finish of the 2023 ARCA Menards Series season.
Van Alst admits that the past month hasn’t been great, but his father’s love and passion for Motorsports have kept Van Alst and his Greg Van Alst’s Motorsports team’s spirits up looking to return to the 1.5-mile speedway and duplicate their top-five performance from May 2022.
“Last year at Charlotte Motor Speedway was our highlight of the 2022 season,” explained Van Alst. “We were really competitive last year at Charlotte and it gave me great confidence in our intermediate program.
“I enjoy the competitiveness that Charlotte Motor Speedway brings to the table. The bumps in the track makes the race a lot about handling – along with tire wear and traffic. Those are all crucial element to succeeding in the race.”
Van Alst is bringing the same No. 35 Greg Van Alst Motorsports Ford Mustang his team delivered a top-10 finish in the series’ most recent race at Kansas Speedway. The fourth race of the season was the first time the family-owned team showcased a Ford Mustang body.
“We definitely learned a lot at Kansas,” added Van Alst. “It was a competitive race, but we were still able to manage a decent finish. We were able to take the intel we learned from Kansas and spent the last several weeks to try and apply those notes with our notes from Charlotte – hoping together we’ll be faster and can contend for our second win of the season.”
With Charlotte being the buffer race between a break and a busy upcoming summer stretch, Van Alst believes his team is ready to attack Charlotte and gain momentum that will take him through a busy June and an intense July run.
“We’ve been fortunate to have a pretty light schedule to start the year, but we have been building our program up preparing for a busy June and a wide-open July. I think we are in a good spot. We just need to keep putting together strong finishes and try to crawl our way back into this championship race.”
Chris Barkdull’s CB Fabricating, a longtime partner with Greg Van Alst Motorsports has boosted its commitment to the team for his 36th career ARCA start and will serve as the primary marketing partner of Van Alst’s No. 35 Ford.
Headquartered in Anderson, Ind., CB Fabricating offers a complete list of fabricating from design, laser cutting, CNC punching, forming, welding, powder coating, and assembly.
Their 26,000-square-foot facility allows them to service the needs of many different industries. Everything from the Automotive, agricultural, aquatic, medical, transportation, electrical enclosures, and much more.
“Chris has been there every step of the way and has been incredibly supportive and a great friend since learning of my dad’s passing,” added Van Alst. “In our continued moments of mourning, he has stepped up to the plate again to make sure that we were fine to go racing at Charlotte Motor Speedway this week and that means so much to me and my family.
“He is an incredible person whose love and passion for Motorsports is undeniable. His support has meant so much to our team and I’d love nothing more than take him back to Victory Lane on Friday night.”
Looking ahead to Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and the upcoming stretch of the summer ARCA Menards Series races on deck, Van Alst will utilize the fifth race of the season to promote SponsorTeam35.com, a website dedicated to offering potential marketing partners opportunities to pledge their support to the family-owned team during the course of the 2023 ARCA Menards Series season.
“SponsorTeam35.com is very simple and I believe easy to use and very self-explanatory,” added Van Alst. “We had a lot of help for Daytona and Talladega and because of the situation with my dad, we did not put a lot of emphasis on Charlotte, but we will try for the other races coming up this summer.
“I hope we’ll have more help throughout the season – but there are plenty of races that are unsold in various locations and I’m hoping this platform will allow us to fill that space as needed throughout the summer.”
Along with CB Fabricating and SponsorTeam35.com, the team welcomes the additional support of Johnson’s Family Plumbing, Top Choice Fence and Vern’s Concrete.
Entering Charlotte, Van Alst sits fourth in the ARCA Menards Series championship standings, 17 markers in the arrears to championship leader Jesse Love with 16 races remaining.
The Greg Van Alst Motorsports team secures sixth in the ARCA Menards Series championship owner standings, 33 points from the top spot held by Rev Racing.
Since 2002, Van Alst has 35 ARCA Menards Series starts to his credit with a career-best finish of first (win) at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway (Feb. 2023). Overall, he has earned three top-five and 17 top-10 finishes and holds an average series finish of 11.7. He finished a career-high fifth in the championship standings in 2022.
For more on Greg Van Alst and Greg Van Alst Motorsports, please visit GregVanAlst.com, like them on Facebook (Van Alst Motorsports) and follow him on Twitter (@GregVanAlst35).
The General Tire 150 (100 laps | 150 miles) is the fifth of 20 races on the 2023 ARCA Menards Series schedule in the 71st consecutive ARCA season. Practice begins Friday, May 26 from 11:40 a.m. – 12:25 p.m. General Tire pole qualifying in a timed session will begin a short time later at 12:40 p.m. The race is set to take the green flag later in the day shortly after 6:00 p.m. ET. The event will be televised live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) with the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM Satellite Radio (XM channel 391 | online channel 981) handling the radio waves. ARCARacing.com will also stream live timing and scoring throughout the entire weekend festivities.
Greg Van Alst Motorsports PR
