Kimmel looks to extend ARCA streak at Pocono

Kimmel’s No 44 Ansell / Menards Toyota carries its largest championship lead of the season, 180 points over Tennessee teenager Mason Mingus, into Friday afternoon’s ModSpace 125, the season’s 13th race.

And Kimmel achieved that margin, in part after scoring his 22nd consecutive top-10 finish for ThorSport Racing, spread across the last two seasons. His most recent came last weekend at the New Jersey Motorsports Park’s road course, where Kimmel scored a competitive fifth-place result that was his league-best 12th top-10 this season.

But the fact that many competitors consider Pocono’s three-cornered, variably-banked track as much of a road course as it is a classic stock-car circuit means little to Kimmel, despite his virtually flawless two top 10s this season on ARCA road courses.

“It’s just Pocono, it’s the next place we’re racing so that makes me look forward to it, with the way our season’s been going,” Kimmel said. “We were really good (at Pocono) in the spring and to come out of New Jersey with a top-five — that just really makes me look forward to Pocono — but I’m looking forward to every race we’ve got to go, for sure.”

Kimmel’s record at many of the tracks ARCA races on this season is exemplary, and Pocono is another example of that. Kimmel had his first top-five in his first Pocono start, in June 1992 and in total has 29 top-10 finishes, two poles and three of his 79 career ARCA wins — including one from the pole in this race in 2006.

With its long straightaways and corners that range from the moderately-banked Turn 1, to the slightly banked “Tunnel Turn” to the virtually flat Turn 3, which leads onto the longest straightaway on any oval track at which major-league stock cars race, Pocono requires a compromise in racecar setup that emphasizes getting off the third turn to maximize top speed at the end of the frontstretch.

But one thing Kimmel said won’t be particularly useful is the fact that ARCA raced Pocono just eight weeks ago. Kimmel isn’t totally dismissing his third-place finish in that event, his 20th career Pocono top-five that came in June, behind first-time ARCA winner Chase Elliott and fellow teenager Erik Jones — both of whom are among the 37 entries this week along with Corey LaJoie, the series’ most recent oval winner.

“Even with as close as the two Pocono races are, I don’t know that you take a whole lot back, really,” Kimmel said. “In June, our setup was really good when we got there and I’m sure we’ll start with something real similar to what we had and just adjust from there. The weather and other circumstances and things we have to deal with will affect it, but all in all, it’s still just Pocono and we’ll go and do the best that we can.”

Kimmel’s hopeful of breaking the tie he currently sits in with Iggy Katona for the most career ARCA victories and at the same time, acknowledges that Pocono has caused him some of the biggest problems of his career, namely seven DNFs, including probably the worst wreck of his career, in the Tunnel Turn that resulted in Kimmel being knocked unconscious and sent to a local hospital for evaluation.

“That’s just part of racing and not something you think about — ever,” Kimmel said. “We’ve had so much success at Pocono through the years and that’s the result of having a lot of good racecars and good guys putting a lot of hard work into them, like Jeriod (Prince, crew chief) and Rich (Lushes, car chief) and my guys at ThorSport have been doing for me these last couple seasons.”

The lone ARCA practice of the weekend runs from 3-5 p.m. ET on Thursday. Menards Pole Qualifying presented by Ansell is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Friday. Kimmel started on the pole in June when qualifying was rained-out and he led the race’s first 22 laps — giving him 331 laps led in his career at Pocono, in 17 races.

Friday’s 50-lap, 125-mile event will be telecast live on the SPEED Channel at 5 p.m. ET, with live timing and scoring available all weekend on the Web atwww.arcaracing.com. It’s the third event in which Kimmel will have a chance to take sole possession of the ARCA record for career victories.