The Frank Kimmel Decade: 2000-Present
TOLEDO, Ohio (November 25, 2009)-Frank
Kimmel established himself as ARCA's major franchise player and the
series' most recognizable name in the 2000s, setting records in nearly
every category and clinching consecutive titles from 2000-2007, making
the 2000s, indisputably, the Kimmel Decade. The stars of the 2000s, along
with champions from each of ARCA's 57 years, will be honored at the ARCA
RE/MAX Series Championship Awards Banquet in Covington, Kentucky, on
Saturday evening, December 5.
From the Series' inaugural race at Dayton Speedway in Ohio on May 10,
1953, to the 2009 Championship race at Rockingham Speedway in North
Carolina on October 11, 2009, it's the stars of ARCA that have formed the
most memorable racing moments in ARCA's history. From 2000-2009, those
stars included Frank Kimmel, who captured eight of his nine championships
during the decade, along with a pair of Justins-Justin Allgaier and
Justin Lofton-the only non-Kimmel ARCA Champions from 2000-2009.
But beyond the Kimmel, Allgaier and Lofton Championships driver
development programs flourished throughout the 2000s with several current
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stars finding success in ARCA before making
their NASCAR debuts. ARCA, like other racing series, made strides with
improvements in the categories of equipment and safety.
A group of ARCA's expert insiders will provide their opinion and analysis
for each of ARCA's six decades, beginning with the inaugural 1953 season
and ending with 2009. ARCA Insiders include history buffs Ron Drager, the
current president of ARCA, Bill Kimmel, Jr., crew chief of the No. 44
Ansell-Menards Fusion driven by Frank Kimmel, and SPEED commentator Phil
Parsons, who will serve as the Master of Ceremonies for this year's
Championship Awards Banquet.
ARCA Insiders Reflect on 2000-2009: ARCA Racing during the Frank Kimmel
Decade
Frank Kimmel, Justin Allgaier and Justin Lofton Crowned Champs
Ron Drager: President of ARCA:
"Indisputably the Kimmel Decade, in the new millennium the
ARCA Series experienced dominance never before seen in the series'
previous 50 seasons by car owner Larry Clement, driver Frank Kimmel and
crew chief Bill Kimmel. Kimmel broke records once considered untouchable,
most notably Iggy Katona's 6 driving championships, with 8 consecutive
driving titles from 2000-2007 and 9 overall adding his '98 crown. His
dominance in 2001 recorded the largest championship points margin in
history at 1180, the greatest single season winnings of $496,368 and 10
victories that season alone. Kimmel's supremacy on-track saw him lead the
series over the 10-year stretch by leading the most laps 6 times, winning
the most poles 3 times, leading the series in victories 7 times, and
winning 4 Superspeedway Challenge championships. He recorded 57 of his 74
career wins during the decade while posting an average points finish of
1.3. Other notable accomplishments include being the only ARCA driver
invited to race in the IROC Series, leading Ford to 5 consecutive ARCA
Manufacturer Championships, rocketing to the top of the all-time career
earnings list at over $4 million, and establishing himself as the all
time lap leader in series competition, surpassing the 10,000 laps-led
mark in 2009. Far from resting on his laurels, Kimmel rallies on in Fords
he and his brother Bill field from their Indiana race shop in pursuit of
further accomplishments, particularly in two categories: Kimmel has 74
career wins to Katona's 79, his 21 superspeedway victories trails only
Tim Steele at 24, and his 18 straight top-10 points finishes is just
short of Katona's 21.
Making Kimmel's accomplishments during the '00s even more impressive is
that it was arguably the most competitive period in series history,
averaging 11 different winners per season and setting a record for
greatest number of different winners, 17, in 2006. And the list of
drivers posting wins during the decade is impressive, among them Tracy
Leslie, Kerry Earnhardt, Ryan Newman, Steele, Blaise Alexander, Jason
Jarrett, Billy Bigley, Ken Schrader, Bobby Gerhart, Jeff Fultz, Fred
Campbell, Chad Blount, Damon Lusk, Casey Atwood, Tony Stewart, Kirk
Shelmerdine, Paul Menard, Mario Gosselin, Kyle Busch, Casey Mears, Reed
Sorenson, Scott Riggs, Blake Feese, Ryan Hemphill, Kraig Kinser, Travis
Kvapil, David Ragan, Steven Wallace, Stephen Leicht, Justin Allgaier,
David Stremme, Chase Miller, Cale Gale, Brian Keselowski, Brad Coleman,
Michael McDowell, Erik Darnell, Chad McCumbee, Michael Annett, Bryan
Clauson, Scott Lagasse Jr., Matt Hawkins, Scott Speed, Ricky Stenhouse
Jr., Joey Logano, Matt Carter, Justin Lofton, Parker Kligerman and Sean
Caisse.
Youth was served in the decade as 16-year-old James Buescher became the
youngest winner in series history at Lakeland in '07, 17-year-old Kyle
Busch was the youngest superspeedway pole winner at Nashville in '03 and
17-year-old Shelby Howard became the youngest superspeedway race winner
at Kansas in '03. On the opposite end of the age scale, 62-year-old Vern
Slagh became the eldest superspeedway pole winner at Kentucky in '02 and
James Hylton finished 15th in driver points at age 75 in '09. Female
drivers made their presence known when Shawna Robinson had the highest
points finish of 6th in '00, Deborah Renshaw posted the best short track
qualifying run of 3rd at Salem in '03 and Erin Crocker won 5 poles and
finished 2nd three times from 2005-2007 in superspeedway races. Crocker's
2007 superspeedway performance earned her and car owner Ray Evernham the
Superspeedway Challenge championship, the only national title won by a
female in ARCA's 58-year history.
Also in the 2000-2009 period: Bill Kimmel collected 8 straight Crew Chief
of the Year awards, as his son Will became a 3rd generation ARCA Series
driver in '09. Rookies of the Year in the decade included Ross, Jarrett,
Blount, TJ Bell, McDowell, Carter and Kligerman. Toyota joined the
on-track competition with Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge. A record sixteen
superspeedway races were conducted in 2001. Roger Penske coined the
driver development term "ABC Plan" as a reference to ARCA-Busch-Cup. A
breakout of newly constructed speedway facilities made ARCA Series races
part of their debut seasons including Chicagoland (2001), Kansas (2001),
Kentucky (2000), Iowa (2006), Nashville (2001) and Gateway (2001). Andy
Hillenburg rescued Rockingham Speedway from decay and reopened with a
series race in '08. RE/MAX entered the decade with series title
sponsorship in 2001 and remained through the 2009 season. The Series'
relationship with Speed Channel TV brought its races to tens of millions
over the decade. ARCA celebrated its 50th anniversary during the decade
which saw the series earn credibility as NASCAR Cup team owners Penske,
Jack Roush, Chip Ganassi, Petty Enterprises, Dale Earnhardt Inc., Richard
Childress, Evernham, Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs enter their equipment
and personnel in series races.
It has been a long and interesting journey since Buckie Sager won the
200-lapper at Dayton Speedway in Ohio on May 10, 1953 through Parker
Kligerman's season-closing victory at Rockingham October 11, 2009. Even
more compelling will be the future of the resilient series, its
determined participants and its ever-evolving position in the motorsports
industry. Buckle up, hang on and keep diggin'."
Bill Kimmel, Jr: Crew Chief of the No. 44 Ansell-Menards Fusion:
"1999 was my inaugural season of competition as Frank's crew
chief in ARCA and I spent 2000 still adjusting to my new roll. 1999 was
my first season away from driving a racecar myself, which was a big
adjustment, but the biggest adjustment was learning how to travel and be
away from home. My son Will was just getting involved in Mini Cup Racing
at that time and there were a lot of nights we didn't go to sleep so that
I could travel home after ARCA races to help him race. Larry Clement was
good enough a lot of times to fly Frank and I back home to watch our kids
race and really that was the only thing that saved me. It's tough to
travel on the road when you are not used to it. On the competition side
we started becoming very successful so that made the job easier too. In
the 2000's, I was becoming more accustomed to dealing with ARCA
Officials, something I hadn't had to deal with before. I had to deal with
television interviews right on pit road right when something was going on
and that was quite a big adjustment for me. I don't know how many times
Ron Drager to me that this wasn't Saturday night racing. So while 2000
and 2001 was a big learning curve for me, success made it easier to deal
with. I think a lot of people were taking notice at what we were doing.
We took a lot of things we learned on the short tracks at Louisville to
the superspeedways and that overwhelmed people a little bit. Our team was
young and NASCAR teams started to take a look at some of our crew guys.
Ford Motor Company stepped up. Joe Rhyne, who was building our motors in
the early 2000s, was building some R&D stuff. The Kimmels were really on
a roll from 2000 until just a couple of years ago, and really, things are
still very good for us. From our standpoint, as the Kimmel family, the
2000s have been an absolute heyday for us. Throughout much of the decade,
Frank was winning races and our kids were winning, and continue to win.
Frankie does very well in the street stocks at Salem Speedway and in 2007
Will became the youngest Late Model Champion at Salem Speedway. Will
raced at Daytona last year and did a great job so things are still going
very well for us.
We started seeing an influx of driver development deals in ARCA during
the 2000s. At first, it was true driver development, with drivers like
Ryan Newman and Kyle Busch. When Ryan Newman came through ARCA, it was
definitely a true driver development deal. They coined the term "ABC"
plan, and went from ARCA to the Busch Series right to Cup. They took
their time making their way up the ladder and these driver development
deals were very successful. Then, the driver development programs changed
a little bit. Now, in a lot of situations, you have parents who want
their children to become the next Jeff Gordon or Ryan Newman or Kyle
Busch, many times before they are ready. These parents bring their kids
to the ARCA Series and spend a lot of money. They move up too fast and
disappear from the racing community. They come and go real quick. They
paid their dues in the sense that they paid a lot of money out of their
wallets to come race here, but they didn't take their time and try to
develop. It has brought a large influx of money to ARCA but I think it
might have chased off some people that might have stayed around and
developed in the series for ten years or more. Maybe people like Matt
Hagans in an ownership roll would have stayed in our series longer if it
wasn't for this influx of non-driver development. Some car owners had to
go by the wayside because the money had gotten so big in the ARCA Series.
That's one of the major things that happened in the 2000s, in my eyes.
I think 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 were some of the most competitive ARCA
years we have seen, and maybe will ever see. When you have seasons where
there are 15 different race winners, including 10 first time winners,
that's an extremely competitive race season in my eyes, and that is what
we were seeing in ARCA during that time. Last year wasn't nearly as
competitive because essentially we only had two winners. Things naturally
taper off during a slow economy. I was there at Charlotte Motor Speedway
when we had 75 cars come try to make a single race, and I have been at
ARCA races where we have had to have teams come in and field start and
park cars because the car counts weren't there. We always bounce back in
ARCA, this series has always weathered the storm and I feel very
confident we will be fine.
Absolutely the biggest thing that happened to stock car racing in the
2000s was the death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr. because out of that we have
seen a complete renovation of our racecars. Frank actually started
wearing a HANS device one year before Earnhardt's death, but other
drivers started as well after he died. In addition to head and neck
restraints, now you can only use a seat belt for two or three years
before you have to replace it. I remember a time in our series when if
you had a seat belt you were doing pretty good. I didn't even have a
crotch belt when I ran Daytona in the late 1970s. Now you need the HANS
Device, SFI-certified seat belts and racing gloves and now anti-intrusion
plates, which are an absolute excellent safety feature. I don't like
cutting up my racecars to install these door plates but it's an important
safety feature. I've had those in my late models for years. The Car of
Tomorrow in NASCAR has made racecar safety even better, especially for
bigger drivers. These days, your sitting so far down in the cars. Look
how much it took to get Ryan Newman out of his COT Car at Talladega this
year. I can't imagine trying to get Frank out. The safety improvements
are great but they have had their consequences in that drivers are
starting to feel like they are invincible. When a driver feels invincible
he's more likely to do things with the steering wheel that he would not
otherwise do. These days you see drivers try to spin each other out at
180 mph because they don't think that anything can happen to them. There
are no consequences to their actions You don't see sprint car drivers
leaning on each other the way stock car drivers do.
I'm looking forward to the future of ARCA racing. A big thing I have seen
change over the decade is the importance of sponsors. Sponsors are
probably priority No. 1 now because if you don't take care of the sponsor
you can't go racing. It's not only about pleasing the sponsor, but also
pleasing all of the people that the sponsor brings to the racetrack.
That's something we didn't have to deal with at Louisville. The
importance of sponsors has increased from the 1990s until now. When you
get increased television coverage everything gets more important.
Suddenly, you're saying Ansell-Menards Ford Fusion all of the time. I
like it. I hope we're saying that again in 2010."
Phil Parsons: SPEED Commentator and Master of Ceremonies for the 2009
ARCA RE/MAX Series Championship Awards Banquet:
"Obviously this decade is Frank Kimmel's decade but beyond
his unprecedented domination of any racing series this decade had several
different facets. One being how the quality of the equipment in the
garage area improved. There has been a major improvement in consistency
throughout the decade and the equipment more closely resembles the
equipment that you would find in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage. Our
sport was rocked in the early part of the decade when we lost some
drivers both in NASCAR and the ARCA Series and that really started us
down the road of making all of stock car racing tremendously safer. With
the advent of the Head and Neck Restraints, improved seats, SAFER
barriers at the racetracks, and other improvements, safety has been a
tremendous area of improvement in all series, but certainly in ARCA.
Personally, I never hit a SAFER barrier but in talking to the drivers
that have hit both regular walls and SAFER walls, the difference is night
and day. When I was racing, a driver's worse fear was blowing a right
front tire because you knew that when you crashed it was going to be very
bad. Now it's like nothing to blow a right front tire. We have made such
great strides over the decade and it is paving the way for future racers
to be safer.
This decade also brought the term driver development to the forefront and
the ARCA series was used predominately in that roll with all of the major
NASCAR teams-Roush-Fenway Racing, Henderick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs
Racing-participating in our series. ARCA became a nice venue for major
NASCAR teams to develop drivers when they realized the advantages of the
ARCA Racing Series. The cars closely paralleled the Cup cars so ARCA was
a great area to get some experience. Drivers like Kyle Busch, Ryan
Newman, Scott Speed, David Ragan, Erik Darnell, Steven Wallace and Reed
Sorenson did well in ARCA and then went on to NASCAR. It was also nice to
see that Justin Allgaier, the first guy to break the stranglehold that
Frank Kimmel had on the decade, bring a spotlight to the ARCA Series when
he was able to move on to NASCAR with Penske. It was even more special
because he was a homegrown driver, so to speak, even though he started
his racing career on dirt he grew up in ARCA. Justin accomplished what a
lot of people have hoped to accomplish-using the ARCA Series as a
platform to get noticed and to hopefully move up.
There is no doubt that the 2000s was Frank Kimmel's decade. For Frank and
that family to have accomplished what they accomplished throughout this
decade and even prior is nothing short of amazing. There is no doubt in
my mind that given the opportunity, Frank and Bill would have prospered
at the next level, in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series or wherever. They are
that good. They were never fortunate enough to get the right opportunity
and beyond that, I think they were happy here. We talk about the
diversity of the Series as far as some people use it as a platform to
move on and some people have made the series a home, like the Kimmels and
the Bowshers. From a personal level, to be able to be a part of the
television broadcast for the last couple of years has been extremely
special because my family has been a part of the series since the 1960s
and I really like being here and all that the Series can offer."
The Stars of ARCA, 1953-2009, will be honored at the 2009 ARCA RE/MAX
Series Championship Awards Banquet in Covington, Kentucky on Saturday
night, December 5. The banquet is open to the public and tickets are
available by contacting Shalene Williams at the ARCA Office (734)
847-6726.
For more information on the ARCA RE/MAX Series, visit www.arcaracing.com.
-credit: arca
