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Brent Crews runs away with ARCA East race at Rockingham, wins over William Sawalich

JHby:Jonathan Howard•04/19/25•

Jondean25

Brent Crews Phoenix ARCA
Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Brent Crews led almost every lap on his way to a dominant victory in today’s ARCA Menards Series East race at Rockingham Speedway. The 17-year-old looked like an old veteran out there in his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 81 car. He’s well on his way to an East title this season.

This is the fourth time in Brent Crews’ ARCA career that he has won. Earlier this season, he won the ARCA race at Phoenix. While William Sawalich did his best in the 18 car to catch his teammate, he just didn’t have what he needed.

When you talk about future Cup Series drivers, Crews should be on the shortlist. He is very young, but he is able to win in anything from the Tulsa Shootout to ARCA, and I’m sure that first NASCAR Truck or Xfinity Series win is not far off.

JGR gets a 1-2 finish, and it shows how bright the future of that organization is. However, it also reveals how cuthroat it can be. While Sawalich was happy to see JGR do well, I’m sure he was hoping to win today. After all, he has won two East Series championships and has 13 wins in ARCA national series competition.

Today, Brent Crews made his case for being the future of Toyota and JGR. Like I said before, he is a racer who can do it on dirt in a sprint car or on the pavement in a stock car. Hell, he can do it in a stock car on dirt as evidenced by his two wins at the Illinois State Fairgrounds and DuQuoin State Fairgrounds in the ARCA car.

Eloy Falcon made his name known today to American race fans. A driver from Mexico, he drove up to P3 today in his first-ever ARCA race. Rev Racing might have found a real talent in Falcon. His development will be very interesting to watch. Mexico is becoming a real talent pipeline for stock car racing.

Brent Crews proves how deep Toyota talent pool is

While William Sawalich is full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this year, Brent Crews took him to school at Rockingham in ARCA. When you start to think about all of the young talent in NASCAR right now, things are getting crowded.

Last year, Sawalich won the ARCA East title, but was often outshined by Connor Zilisch. Now, he is in the middle of a slump in the Xfinity Series. His last five races have ended in finishes of P38, P24, P27, P35, and P34. His last top-10 came at COTA. Even though he was P2 today, I’m not sure that’s good enough of a performance to give him a boost later today in the Xfinity race.

Brent Crews is going to move a few drivers out of the pecking order sooner than later. He has starts with Tricon Garage this year in the Truck Series. He’s too young to race ovals bigger than 1.25 miles in length, but will be one to watch in the short track races he enters.

What a race from Crews. These ARCA races can be really tough to watch, but Crews showed that a dominant win can be interesting. After all, he had to dodge cars all race long. At one point, he went below the white line to make the pass on a lapped car. This kid is going places.