Kimmel grabs second top-five of 2013 at Mobile

Mobile International Speedway – ARCA Mobile 200

Race Recap:

Race: 2 of 21

Location: Mobile International Speedway

Kimmel perseveres, notches second top-five of 2013

IRVINGTON, Ala. (March 9, 2013) — Frank Kimmel continued his resurgent season Saturday with a comeback fifth-place finish in the ARCA Mobile 200, the second annual ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards event at Mobile International Speedway.

Kimmel, the nine-time series champion whose 2012 title hopes were derailed by poor finishes in the first two races, scored his second consecutive top-five finish of 2013 — his second season with ThorSport Racing — when his No. 44 Ansell / Menards Toyota picked up four positions in the last 23 laps.

The finish marked an effective comeback as Kimmel’s car’s handling deteriorated two-thirds of the way into the race and, after running inside the top five for most of the event’s first half, Kimmel found himself a lap down, in ninth, after 160 laps with only 40 laps remaining.

“It seemed like after about 15 green-flag laps, the car would start slowing down,” Kimmel said. “And then it would get worse and worse as we ran. I don’t know what it was but we’ll have to figure out what’s going on with that.

“We just fell off too far. Everybody’s going to fall off — to lose a second or so (on tire performance) a lap — but we lost almost two seconds, so we’ve just got to make it run a little longer.”

Kimmel started the 200-lap race on the high-banked half-mile oval in sixth, but jumped into fifth on the first lap, as eventual winner Grant Enfinger took the lead and began to stretch his margin. Under the race’s third caution, at lap 63 Kimmel’s ThorSport Racing crew got him out of the pits in front of Enfinger and they restarted 13^th and 14^th, respectively, at lap 67.

Five laps later, when the top-five cars in the running order hit pit road, Kimmel, who had picked his way through traffic a little better than Enfinger, led laps 75-79.

“That was excellent,” Kimmel said of his crew’s work all day. “We were able to get through traffic a little better and stay ahead of (Enfinger) until another caution and I was able to lead a few laps. In the big picture of the race that’s a big point deal. But Grant and his team did a great job. They had everybody covered.”

Kimmel’s biggest challenge came after a restart at lap 108. Kimmel was second to Enfinger but gradually lost ground and fell into the clutches of his pursuers. Kimmel’s car quickly became almost undriveable, losing a lap to Enfinger in the process. But crew chief Jeriod Prince made some adjustments, a couple quick cautions resulted in Kimmel getting a free pass on lap 167 and after Kimmel made a quick stop at lap 168 to check for tire rub after contact on a restart at lap 165, with 29 laps remaining Kimmel restarted ninth.

“The mark of a good team is to battle through adversity, and that’s who handles bad stuff, the best,” Kimmel said. “On that middle run, for whatever reason, we really lost the handle on the car and it got really hard to drive. So we just had to persevere and get through that, we got the (free pass) and we got some luck and Jeriod made a couple adjustments on the car at the end and we got back up through there. It was all we could do.”

Kimmel picked up fifth position with only four laps remaining when he dove inside youngster Justin Boston heading into Turn 1. He pulled far enough away to prevent a repeat of 2012, when contact from an over-aggressive competitor spun Kimmel from third back to 17^th at the very end of the race.

“This is what it takes,” Kimmel said of his team’s great start to the season. “When you have a good day, you’ve got to take advantage of it and when you have a bad day, you’ve got to do better than what you should’ve. And (at Mobile) I think we overcame and made the best of a bad situation so that’s all you can do.”

After finishing fourth in the season opener at Daytona, Kimmel is now unofficially in a tie for the series lead with SCOTT Rookie Challenge candidate Mason Mingus, who finished fourth at Mobile after winning his first career Menards Pole Award presented by Ansell.

After his car cleared post-race inspection Prince said he could see both sides of the coin after Mobile, but he was already working on solutions.

“Points-wise this season is way better, obviously,” Prince, who’s in his second season with Kimmel, said. “But performance-wise, as good as Daytona was, we really struggled here — the worst we’ve run in a while on a short track — so we’ve got some homework to do.

“They made some rule changes and adjusting to that has hurt us a little bit, but we’ll go testing and figure it out. Frank did a heck of a job coming back from being a lap down and getting a top-five finish.”

The ARCA Racing Series is off until April 28 when the Kentuckiana Ford Dealers ARCA 200 is scheduled at legendary Salem (Ind.) Speedway.