OREGON, Wis. — It wasn’t too long ago that Thomas Annunziata didn’t think he had a chance at an ARCA Menards Series title.

“I struggled at first, wasn’t having the pace that I wanted to, and didn’t have the feel,” Annunziata said.

He wrecked in the season-opening race at Daytona, finishing in 26th, and crashed at Talladega as well.

“We’ve lost around 40 to 45 points of just stupid stuff.”

But after a race at Pocono on June 12, something changed. Three poles in qualifying and a string of top-10 finishes have him right back in the title fight. He credits a shift in mindset to his turn around. When you’re piloting what is effectively a car-shaped missle, having the right mindset is everything.

“You don’t really understand when you’re watching on the TV, but you’re driving into a corner at 150 to 180 miles an hour, depending on the track, and you got to trust the car is going to stick,” he said. “Even if the car is one or two-percent freer than it needs to be. You react to it. You’re surviving. Things kicked in, and you know it’s a very uncomfortable feeling.”

Just being comfortable in the racecar can make a world of difference. And when you’re constantly worrying about the cars around you and avoiding a crash, finding that comfort zone can be a challenge.

“It’s about slowing your mind down and really processing what just happened in that half-second to be able to communicate with the team what you need,” Annunziata said. “And once you start finding a feel, you kind of start chasing a target. And once you have a target that you’re chasing, everything becomes a little bit more easier.”

And that target isn’t his Nitro Motorsports teammate and series leader Jake Bollman, who led Annunziata by 24 points before that race at Pocono but leads by just 4 points heading into Friday’s race at Madison International Speedway.

“At a certain point, we were so far behind; it was almost unhealthy to think about it because it was, just, that’s not the focus anymore,” Annunziata said. “I thought I was done.”

As he gets ready for Madison, Annunziata is focusing on racing his best race. That starts with qualifying, where he finds that blocking out the noise is key, especially on ovals.

“If we’re qualifying and people are going up before me, I don’t even want to know what the target time is,” he said. “I just kind of get settled within myself and just tell myself to drive as fast as I humanly can and trust my ability.”

And that trust is well-put. Annunziata hasn’t qualified outside the top 5 since Pocono, and he has translated that good starting position into good finishing positions, with 2 podium finishes in the last 3 races.

“If you’re second, third, or fourth, which we’ve been, it’s about minimizing the mistakes and maximizing our starting position,” he said. “If we’re struggling with our race car, we start up front in front of people, so try to hold track position and just try to work on the racecar as we come in to the pits for the breaks.”

Consistency will be the key to the title fight Annunziata now finds himself in. It was a lack of consistency that put him behind Bollman at the beginning of the year and newfound consistency that brought him back. He has shown that he has the speed to qualify high and finish higher.

“If we could just keep doing that, naturally you’re going to be better,” Annunziata said. “But we just got to stay out of trouble, and race up front, and do our jobs better than we’ve done the last seven weeks, and we should be there.”

But Madison is a unique beast. “Wisconsin’s Fastest Half Mile” gives drivers far less room to work with compared to tracks like Pocono or even the mile-long Illinois State Fairgrounds where ARCA raced last week.

Annunziata has never raced at Madison and, unlike some other tracks on the ARCA schedule, there is no simulator to help him get a better feel for things. That means scanning the internet and leaning on others.

“I have Derrike Cope and [crew chief] Shannon Rursch and [team owner] Nick Tucker, those guys that could lean on in terms of just experience and what to do and what not to do in terms of racing,” he said. “But yeah, other than that, we have some onboards that I could look at on YouTube and just kind of get a good visual of the racetrack.” 

So how will Annunziata approach a race where he has little time to get acclimated to a brand new place? The same way he approaches each race. Consistency is key, remember?

“Practice, I’m going to chase that target that I’ve been talking about, the feeling that I want, and we’re going to work hard there. Qualifying, I’m going to do the same thing and just zone out from what everything else is happening and what everyone else is saying,” he said. “And if we qualify in front of everyone we need to, I’m just going to obviously do my best to win the race. But if that’s not possible, just be as least mistake-prone as possible, so we can execute a really good finish.”

And although Annunziata is coming to Madison with a string of good results on his back, he doesn’t plan on getting wrapped up in his own momentum.

“I don’t know if it’s real or not. I mean you can’t really feel it, touch it. You know, you can’t see it either. But it does seem to be that in in sports in general, and especially motorsports, when you do have momentum, it carries into the next weekend,” he said. “I think the momentum helps, but try to look at it individually. You know, racing’s crazy, and you never know what’s going to happen.”

Annunziata will hope to avoid too much craziness when he gets behind the wheel Friday night. The race starts at 8 p.m. He’s hoping to enjoy some Wisconsin cheese before that.

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