Frank Kimmel will drive a specially built road course car for this weekend's South Jersey Building Trades 150 at the 2.25-mile Thunderbolt Raceway road course at New Jersey Motorsports Park. (Photo: Getty Images)
Versatile ARCA RE/MAX Series Switches to Dirt
The ARCA RE/MAX Series will transition to dirt track racing on Sunday, August 23 for the Allen Crowe 100 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Illinois. The race marks the 14th of 21 events on the 2009 schedule and the first of two dirt track events for the ARCA RE/MAX Series in 2009. The ARCA RE/MAX Series has toured more than 200 racetracks since its inception in 1953 and competes each year on a variety of racing surfaces, including paved short tracks, speedways, road courses and dirt tracks.
The ARCA RE/MAX Series has competed at the Illinois State Fairgrounds on 26 previous occasions and nine-time ARCA RE/MAX Series Champion Frank Kimmel is the all-time ARCA winner at the track with seven wins in his last 11 attempts. Other former Springfield winners include Dearn Roper, Bill Baird, Bobby Bowsher, Tim Steele, Justin Allgaier, Bob Brevak, Bob Hill, Bobby Jacks, Ken Schrader and Billy Thomas.
Anatomy of a Dirt Car
An ARCA RE/MAX Series racecar prepared for the Illinois State Fairground might look slightly different from an ARCA RE/MAX Series racecar prepared for a superspeedway such as Chicagoland or a paved short track such as Toledo, even though the core set of technical rules that teams must adhere to do not change from race to race. For the dirt tracks, teams often equip their racecars with shakers made of screen on their front grille to prevent dirt from collecting and causing overheating issues, angular sheet metal rock deflectors attached to the hood and many Series drivers take rags with them in the car to clean dust residue from the inside of the windshield.
"For the most part we bring a car that we could race at a short track," said Patrick Donahue, Crew Chief of the No. 81 Greenville Toyota of North Carolina Toyota driven by Craig Goess and fielded by Eddie Sharp Racing. "I'm bringing the same car that I raced last year with Scott Speed. We have come up with a real simple package that we can put on any of the cars. We put a screen under the car in front of the motor to help keep dirt or mud from getting up into the belt on the motor. Then we put pieces of screen behind the front tires to keep stuff from getting packed up under the car."
In addition, Springfield and DuQuoin are the only two tracks on the ARCA RE/MAX Series tour in which Hoosier supplies teams with bias ply tires instead of radial tires.
Schrader Returns
Ken Schrader, a veteran of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition, makes a return to the ARCA RE/MAX Series for the first time since the May 17 ARCA race at Toledo Speedway. He joins Frank Kimmel as one of two former Springfield winners entered for Sunday's race.
