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[/media-credit](TOLEDO, Ohio) – Jim Vandiver is 72 years old today, a man over 35 years removed from his perfect ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards record at Talladega Superspeedway: two starts, two wins.
Even if Vandiver is no longer the same young driver who swept two ARCA races five years apart, he’s still the name that stands first on the long list of winners at the historic 2.66-mile oval, where ARCA will race Friday for the 50th time in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame 250.
Vandiver led 132 of 188 laps on October 26, 1969, allowing him to top Ramo Stott and Freddy Fryar in ARCA’s first appearance at Talladega. Since then, Stott earned two wins of his own and Vandiver then won in 1975, paving the way for a rising driver like Mark Martin, then just 22, to win in 1981. Alabama Gang driversDavey Allison and Red Farmer and fellow Southern star Grant Adcox of Tennessee won 11 straight races at Talladega between 1983 and 1988.
Since then, winners have included Tracy Leslie, Jimmy Horton, Charlie Glotzbach, Tim Steele, Frank Kimmel, and Bobby Gerhart, among others up to Ty Dillon in last year’s thrilling finish. If Dillon’s last-lap pass of Kimmel from 2011 is any indicator of what’s to come in Friday’s 94-lap event, ARCA’s 60th Anniversary Season is bound to get more exciting.
The International Motorsports Hall of Fame 250 at Talladega will begin Friday at 5 p.m. ET (4 local) and air live on SPEED. ARCARacing.com will feature live timing and scoring coverage, as well as live audio coverage, as presented by WTDR Thunder 92.7 FM of Talladega.
The trip to Talladega is a drastic change of pace for many ARCA Racing Series teams just winding down from Sunday’s race at the 0.555-mile Salem Speedway, a rough, high-banked oval in southern Indiana. According to new ARCA points leader Brennan Poole, the smooth, wide, and numerous grooves at Talladega should create an action-packed race, as usual. Poole compared Talladega to the only other large track on which the series has raced this year, Daytona International Speedway.
“Daytona’s really tough to pass on, when you start in the back; it’s such a ‘bottom’ race track,” said Poole, who finished seventh in the season opener at Daytona. “At Talladega, we can move around. I hope this time I won’t be starting in the back and I can have better track position. The Venturinis have a great engine program and great chassis, along with smart people working on these cars. I feel like we’re going to be right there in the mix of everything and have a shot at winning the race.”
Will Kimmel finished third at Daytona, showing that he has the superspeedway power necessary to remain in the top 10 in points. He, too, compared the two mammoth superspeedways, just before driving the fastest lap in open testing at the track earlier this month.
“Talladega is so much easier to drive (than Daytona),” Kimmel said. “That’s just because Daytona kind of throws you into the turn and the turns are pinched…and the track itself at Daytona is a little more narrow. Here at Talladega, you’ve got so much room to race, so you can really give each other a lot of room and run wide open, two- or three-wide really, really comfortably here.”
Practice on Thursday, May 3 will begin at 11 a.m. ET (10 a.m. local time) and last for three hours, and will be followed by Menards Pole Qualifying presented by Ansell at 6:05 (5:05 local). The series will hold a final practice Friday morning, from 11-11:55 (10-10:55 local).
In a fitting tie to the race name, ARCA will also be represented at Thursday’s International Motorsports Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The Hall of Fame is located on Talladega Superspeedway property, and this year will induct Richard Childress, last season’s champion team owner in the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards. Ty Dillon, grandson to Childress and the 2011 ARCA Racing Series driving champion, will be recognized on stage at the ceremony.
In addition, ARCA will unveil its newly-designed wing within the International Motorsports Hall of Fame that evening. The walls of the ARCA wing will feature a more modern look and honor each of the 29 driving champions of ARCA’s previous 59 seasons.
2012 is the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards’ 60th Anniversary Season, featuring 20 races at 18 tracks. The complete 2012 event schedule is available at ARCARacing.com.
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards has crowned an ARCA national champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 race tracks in 28 states since its inception. The series has tested the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, visiting tracks ranging from 0.4 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as a left- and right-turn road course in its most recent season. This year, the series visited Alabama’s Mobile International Speedway for the first time. In June, the first event at Minnesota’s Elko Speedway will give ARCA a race in a 29th state.
Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the country. Closing in on completing its sixth decade after hundreds of thousands of miles of racing, ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in three professional touring series and local weekly events.
