2011 Fort Worth 500

The 2011 Fort Worth 500 presented by Smash Beer was the first race of the 2011 ARLA Elite Series season. It was held at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, TX.

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Pre-race storylines
Jacob Eichholtz won the Rookie Shootout, earning him 25 points. This made him the points leader coming into the first race. During practice Randy McFlasher had tremendous trouble getting his TTE RB6 to drive straight. McFlasher, who had no stock car experience prior to the race, claimed he had mechanical issues, but nothing on his No. 180 car was found to be nonfunctional. After he caused a major accident involving him and Kenn Groves, officials pulled McFlasher from the entry list and revoked his competitor's license.

Race one
Bigsby Foote qualified on the pole with Dale Underwood qualifying second. Early in the race, the White Mountain Motorsports and M&J Racing entries proved to be fast. In one of the earlier cautions, Wesley Savage caused controversy by mysteriously pulling in front of Salvatore Provenzano. Blake Camphausen, who was very much an unknown to many in the stands, was very competitive, giving his small team a good run. Late in the race, rookie CJ Cameron proved to be one of the fastest cars on the track, but was passed by another rookie, Edwin Schwarzloski. Coming to the white flag, Cameron took the lead, and won the race.

Race two
M&J Racing and their sister team Riggs Motorsports swept the first three rows with Taylor Brillon taking the pole. The first caution came out when Leslie Riggs got into Alex Carson. taking Bruce Wilkinson and Mike Andrews with them. Carson spun up the track and into traffic triggering a massive pile up. Riggs, Wilkinson, and Andrews spun to the inside where Andrews drifted back up into traffic, getting into Damien Snyder, and then drifted back down and was hit by Derek Dudding. In the closing laps, Mumba Kumangu surprised everyone by briefly taking the lead in a 2010 Katzev. Kumangu hadn't raced at all since 2008. But it was Joseph Howard that took a massive lead and never looked back, taking his first ARLA victory. He became the ninth driver to win in the TM Master Cup Series and in ARLA.

Postrace penalties

 * Eric Jackson – warning for reckless driving
 * Wesley Savage – 25 points for reckless driving