Frank Kimmel’s ARCA RE/MAX String Ends
For the first time in nine years, someone other than Frank Kimmel leaves Toledo Speedway with an ARCA RE/MAX series championship.
That was expected after Kimmel left his long-time owner to form his own team. That doesn’t mean Kimmel wasn’t among the favorites - he has nine career victories at the track - but it wasn’t to be as he came up short and finished a very respectable third.
“I absolutely love Toledo Speedway,” Kimmel told ARCA’s website. “The ARCA RE/MAX Series belongs on these half-mile tracks, the Salem’s, the Toledo’s, the Winchester’s. I’m not saying we don’t have a place on the superspeedways, but the short-tracks are where the series roots are, where it built much of its character and identity.”
What was unexpected Sunday was the series championship slipping from the hands of Scott Speed after entering the event 105 points ahead of his closest pursuer Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Slip it did as Speed only completed 34 laps, finished 34 in the 35 car field, and sat on the sidelines as Justin Allgaier took the checkered flag in the Hantz Group 200 and won the ARCA RE/MAX Series championship along with it.
Roush-Fenway driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. also finished poorly (25th) allowing Allgaier to leapfrog the two points leaders with his win.
Of the two NASCAR stars doing double duty this weekend David Ragan had the best finish bringing the Roulo Brothers Racing Ford home in fifteenth. Ken Schrader finished 24th in his self-owned Federated Auto Parts Dodge.
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Ah, Marc. What a race.Wish you could have been here. Kimmel surely deserves your praise. He is one of the classiest people that I have ever met. Scott Speed is not.
Ricky Stenhouse took Speed out going into turn three early in the race. I don’t think there is much doubt of that or any doubt that Stenhouse’s move was retribution for being taken out by Speed at Salem three weeks ago. Short track paybacks are part of the deal but these guys disrespected the ARCA RE/MAX Series by pulling this stuff in the final race.
That said, all Speed had to do was let his team put the car back together and soldier on to a top 20 finish and he would have taken the championship for his TEAM. Instead, once back on the track, Speed waited for Stenhouse to pull up to him and took both cars out of the race with a blatant, dangerous move. Speed had already made - and continues to make - it clear that that championship means nothing to HIM personally. But he blew off a season’s worth of work by a team and an owner. They deserved better.
It will be interesting to see how Scott Speed and his Toyota are treated by the five - or is it seven - Roush-Fenway Fords this week at Martinsville, in Speed’s Cup debut.
Actually, this was posted prior to reading any of the race reports, just seeing the results page.
Oddly a couple minutes prior to seeing your comment I read the Stenhouse race report and learned how the two top contenders fell by the wayside.
I guess I should say how one was forced to the wayside.
To be fair, each hit the other. With purpose, in my opinion. Would have been a more interesting race had Stenhouse had been there to race with Allgaier and Kimmel.