Michael Self

With a car that his crew chief described as "winning", Self worked his way through the field using his car and crashed again, finishing 25th.

He finished seventh in points with three top fives.

The following year, Self broke out, winning three races and only finishing out of the top ten six times in a fifteen race season.

He improved to sixth in points.

Michael Self (born November 1, 1990) is an American professional stock car racing driver.

He last competed full-time in the ARCA Menards Series, driving the No. 25 Toyota Camry for Venturini Motorsports.

He was a former development driver for Richard Childress Racing, and has made seven NASCAR Xfinity Series starts for JD Motorsports.

He has eight wins in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West, and nine wins in ARCA competition.

Self started racing at age eleven in go-karts.

Self was a Rotax Max driver and won a regional championship and finished well enough in the national championship to represent America in the world championships.

He switched to open-wheel cars five years later and came to stock cars at age eighteen, debuting in late models.

The stock car opportunity came around the time of the CART-IndyCar split; Self had scholarship money from Mazda waiting but passed on the opportunity.

In 2009, Self ran two races with Motorway Motorsports, starting and parking.

After going full-time with Motorway in 2010, Self was signed by the Golden Gate Racing Team, a team owned by Jim Offenbach which was an affiliate of Richard Childress Racing, for the final two races of the season.

The partnership with GGRT extended into 2011, with Self driving top-tier equipment.

However, there were missteps, like a crash in Sonoma qualifying that relegated him to the back of the field.

Throughout his early developmental career, Self's family funded his efforts; the family ran out of money around 2013.

In 2013, Self won three races in a row and never fell out of the top six in points to finish fourth.

Despite the six wins, Self did not return to the RCR driver development lineup in 2014.

With no ride in the K&N Pro Series West, Self joined Venturini Motorsports for two ARCA Racing Series events in 2014, the first at Mobile International Speedway.

He failed to finish either of his starts due to mechanical issues.

He spotted for Justin Haley in 2015 and 2016 at various races.

Again without a ride in any national series, Self partnered with Ranier Racing with MDM for a race at Kansas Speedway in 2016, in which he finished third.

In 2017, Self returned to the West Series for a part-time schedule of races with Sunrise Ford Racing.

He was contacted by team owner Bob Bruncati about running the car, and initially refused on a basis of a lack of sponsorship.

Once Bruncati made it known that no sponsorship was needed, Self agreed to drive it for the rest of the season.

He won the race at Meridian Speedway after Chris Eggleston was disqualified for jumping the final restart.

He finished in the top ten in all of his starts and won another race, at All American Speedway.

In January 2017, Self announced that he would return to the No. 28 for the renamed MDM Motorsports (due to Ranier leaving the team as a co-owner) for the season-opening race at Daytona.

After running inside the top ten at Daytona, Sinclair Oil Corporation added more races with Self in both the ARCA series and K&N Series with MDM and Mason Mitchell Motorsports on the ARCA side and Sunrise Ford Racing on the NASCAR side.

Self finished inside the top five in three of his next four races before he won the season finale at Kansas Speedway, beating out Ty Majeski in a five-wide race after the final restart.

Self gave the credit to his spotter Derek Kneeland, who also was the spotter for NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Larson at the time.

He followed up with a win at Chicagoland in late June, avenging a near-loss in the 2017 edition of the event.

Self beat Riley Herbst and Sheldon Creed on the final restart to secure the victory.

At Salem Speedway in fall, Self and Zane Smith got in a racing incident early in the race, leading Smith to retaliate by intentionally destroying Self's car later in the race.

Smith was later penalized by ARCA for the incident.

On January 8, 2018, it was announced that Self and Sinclair partnered with Venturini Motorsports for half of the 2018 ARCA Racing Series schedule.

The schedule includes races at Daytona, Nashville, Talladega, Charlotte, Michigan, Chicagoland, Lucas Oil Raceway, Salem and Kansas.

Both driver and sponsor had previous experience with Venturini, as Self had raced with the team in ARCA and the Venturini family had operated Sinclair gas stations.

Self began the 2018 ARCA season by winning the season-opening Lucas Oil 200 at Daytona.