In July, Thomas Annunziata and Jake Bollman were fighting for the lead at Lime Rock Park. A restart had put Bollman underneath his Nitro Motorsports teammate, but Annunziata didn’t stay behind for long. He passed Bollman back in Turn 6 and went on to win by nearly 10 seconds, his first victory of the season.

It was one of many times the two teammates found themselves racing each other hard in 2026. By the time they reached Kansas, there was little mystery about how closely matched they could be, or how quickly that competition could turn physical. Annunziata would later point to a season of contact between the two cars, including what he said was 13 straight weeks of qualifying ahead of Bollman. But at the ARCA season finale, that familiar rivalry turned bitter. After Bollman accused his teammate of intentionally wrecking him during the championship fight, newly crowned champion Annunziata had a pointed response:

In a clip seen on X, he argues that Bollman cannot completely portray himself as the victim. “But he’s not innocent. I mean, he’s run into me a lot this year. I mean, Duqoin, the last, the last laps of Duqoin with eight to go, I was running, I was on the outside row and he thought it was funny to floor it 60 feet before the finish line, trying to push me ahead of Carson Brown to get me a penalty.”

He also pointed to the broader pattern between the two cars, arguing that Bollman had often been the one making contact despite Annunziata’s qualifying advantage.

“Well, he’s gotten into me most of the time, especially since we’ve outqualified them, you know, 13 weeks straight. You know, he’s never in front of me. He’s usually behind me. So he runs into me. So that’s a bit unfortunate.”

But the Kansas finale offered the clearest evidence of just how quickly the rivalry could change the championship picture. The two title contenders were already racing for third when Bollman moved low to get around a lapped car. He entered Turn 1 lower and faster than expected, slid up the track and made contact with Annunziata. Bollman saved his No. 20; Annunziata’s No. 70 spun.

One lap after the restart, Annunziata caught back up to Bollman and made contact that sent the No. 20 into a spin. Annunziata later said he had tried to get alongside Bollman for a side draft and misjudged the move, while also describing the exchange as “an eye for an eye.” Neither incident caused significant damage, and Bollman recovered from the spin and began moving back through the field.

That distinction became important later in the night. The contact between the teammates changed the complexion of the race, but it was not the crash that ultimately put Bollman’s championship out of reach.

Before halfway, Will Kimmel lost control while running the top line through Turn 3 and spun directly into Bollman’s path. The No. 20 slammed into Kimmel’s driver-side door before Austin Vaughn hit Bollman’s damaged car in the aftermath. Annunziata backed off and made it through the wreck.

For the first time all night, the championship was suddenly in Annunziata’s hands. But even then, it was not as simple as waiting for the checkered flag. He needed to stay high enough in the running order to take advantage of the points swing, while his own car was still struggling for speed after the earlier contact with Bollman.

A damaged Bollman eventually returned to the track, leaving Annunziata trying to figure out where his teammate was running while doing championship math in his head. He later admitted that he was “kind of losing it a little bit” because he did not know whether Bollman was last.

“The last 20 [laps], I was finally understanding where I needed to be,” Annunziata said. “Everyone was calm, staying quiet. I was kind of losing it a little bit not knowing where I [was]. I started doing the math in my own head. I didn’t know if [Bollman] was last or not. I was ninth or tenth and I had damage after me and him had contact.”

The late caution gave Annunziata’s crew chief Shannon Rusch a chance to make adjustments. Annunziata restarted outside the immediate title-winning position, but the No. 70 came alive when it mattered. He moved past Andy Jankowiak for fifth with six laps remaining and held that spot to the finish.

Bollman could climb no higher than 21st. Annunziata’s fifth-place finish was enough to bring the championship points level at 947 apiece.

That was where an afternoon at Lime Rock Park suddenly became worth far more than one race win.

Annunziata’s July victory was his only win of the 2026 season. Bollman, despite leading the standings for most of the year and entering Kansas with a 16-point advantage, had gone winless. With the two drivers tied on points, Annunziata’s Lime Rock victory gave him the tiebreaker and the ARCA Menards Series championship.

It was an outcome Annunziata had barely allowed himself to imagine before Kansas. He said he had already “let go of it” after Bristol the previous week and arrived at the finale focused simply on putting himself in position to capitalize if an opportunity appeared.

“My whole goal going into it was having fun and understanding that there was nothing I could really do,” Annunziata said. “I let go of it a week ago, right after Bristol. I was just trying to get myself with an opportunity to win. Everything else just transpired after that.”

Bollman saw the night very differently. He said the early contact with the lapped car was not intentional and argued that he had no reason to take a needless risk while holding a 16-point lead.

“We should have been more patient, but I wanted to really get that last win,” Bollman said. “I don’t feel like I put myself in any bad situation except that lapped car deal, and cost us a little bit there. But getting flat out dumped for that? I apologized right as it happened on the radio. It wasn’t intentional. I already had 16 points on him. Didn’t need to wreck him, right? Just hurts real bad…”

Bollman later told FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass that he did not intend to speak to Annunziata again, saying, “I won’t ever talk to him again.” That turned the championship celebration into an uncomfortable post-race fallout between two drivers who had shared the same Nitro Motorsports stable all season.

Annunziata, however, maintained that he did not deliberately wreck his teammate. He said he could have gone around Bollman’s outside but chose to move inside and get close enough to side draft, insisting that the resulting contact was not an intentional spin. He also pointed to Bollman’s own pre-race comment that getting into each other while racing for the championship would be “fair game.”

“He spun me out today, and that was not my intention to spin him out there. I was not going to leave him an inch,” Annunziata said. “I could have went around his outside. I decided to go down his inside and get as close to him as possible to, to side draft.”

He then drew the line between the two on-track incidents and the crash that actually damaged Bollman’s championship hopes.

“I have a lot of respect for him. He’s done a great job this year. I was hoping he was okay, especially after that hit. I saw, I watched the whole thing and it’s unfortunate, but if he doesn’t want to talk to me. That’s fine. But I think that’s a bit silly because I’m not the reason why he lost the championship tonight.”

There is some irony in how the championship ended. Annunziata had spent much of the season learning a discipline that was still relatively new to him. A road-course specialist with Trans Am experience, he only began racing ovals in 2023 and admitted that he had missed the years of oval experience many of his rivals had built from childhood.

“I knew I had the talent. I just didn’t know what I was doing.”

That learning curve made the consistency he found in 2026 even more significant. Daytona and Talladega were his only finishes outside the top 10 all season, while the rest of the campaign kept him close enough to Bollman to remain alive for the finale. A late crash at Salem and a start violation at Bristol had also threatened to end that possibility before Kansas even arrived.

Instead, the road-course racer reached the final night with one victory that happened to carry the tiebreaker. Bollman had the consistency and the 16-point cushion. Annunziata had the one result he needed when everything else finally leveled out.

And now, after a season spent sharing the same garage, the new ARCA champion and the man he beat on the tiebreaker left Kansas with very different feelings about the same championship fight.