When ARCA showed up at Daytona Int’l Speedway with 61 cars for Sunday’s test runs, Dodge-mounted James Buescher surprised all with the fastest practice speed. From a brand perspective Toyota and Ford were next best on the speed chart with the series’ biggest winner, Chevrolet, sixth fastest. In another surprise, nine-time ARCA champion Frank Kimmel vacated his well-worn seat in Larry Clement’s No. 46 Chevy to drive a Dodge owned by Kerry Scherer. Matt Carter, son of noted NASCAR mechanic Travis Carter, gets Kimmel’s old seat. With NASCAR testing coming up shortly at the “Big D” all eyes will be on which nameplate excels.
 
It is interesting to see that Kevin Kalkhoven, who holds an ownership interest in the Champ Car World Series, the PKV Racing Team, Cosworth Racing and the Long Beach Grand Prix, was recently cleared of any wrongdoing by a jury as were three of his associates in a suit brought by investors in JDS Uniphase, where Kalkhoven had been the CFO. The suit had dragged on for five years. 

Call it a Christmas present for NASCAR. Coca-Cola, long a marketing partner with the sanctioning body, recently extended its relationship with the Daytona entity for another 10 years through 2017. It also has long sponsored the Coca-Cola 600, an annual race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc. Earlier this year, Coke knocked Pepsi out of pouring rights at 13 International Speedway Corp. tracks in this country. Coke would not say what that deal cost, other than it is the largest such deal in company history.  

Indiana’s Anderson Speedway, one of this country’s few short tracks with more than 10,000 seats, has scheduled the Anderson 400 Midget Classic for Sat., July 26th next year. Some say efforts are being made to make it this country’s No. 1 annual midget race, a distinction currently shared by Tulsa’s Chili Bowl and Turkey Nite at Irwindale in Los Angeles. Anderson Speedway lays claim to being this country’s fastest quarter-mile track. 

Last chance to book your table for the 38th annual All-America Team Awards Banquet at the Hyatt Regency in Indianapolis on Jan. 12th. Tix are $65 each, with checks to AARWBA Banquet, call (8l8) 842-7005 for mailing address and details as to time etc. Shav Glick, Wally Parks and Bill France, Jr. will be memorialized and the 2007 Jerry Titus Award winner will be made known.

A week later on Jan. 19th in the Charlotte suburb of Concord, N.C. the annual National Motorsports Press Ass’n Hall of Fame induction dinner will usher in Tommy Houston. Open only to NMPA members, this award is significant as Houston played a key part in elevating stock-car racing out of its early-day “moonshiner” image to the exalted status it today enjoys in town after town south of the Mason-Dixon line. 

Road racing regular Larry Mason of Burbank, Calif. recently delivered a talk on engine thermodynamics to students in the Physics Department at Loyola  Marymount University in Los Angeles. Mason is seeking funding for a car to run in the IRL’s Pro Series next year. Meanwhile, Mason is training 2008 Nissan Rogue and 2008 Infiniti G37 Coupe sales personnel with high-performance driving tips. Chat with Larry at (818) 843-0333.

Tickets are now available for the 42nd annual Dinner Dance of the Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club. It’s Saturday, Jan. 19, at DeCarlo’s in Warren, Mich. Call Bill Barnhart at (586) 777- 2837 for your $35 ducat. Reservation deadline is Jan. 8th.

And in Indiana, a week later, the Hoosier Auto Racing Fan Club’s annual awards banquet is Jan. 27th but the info sheet doesn’t tell us where! You will have to write for details (and, if you wish, include $20 for each ticket desired to HARF) at 2137 Main St., Speedway, Ind. 46224.  

The Indy Racing League’s support series, Indy Pro, gets a nice break as the focus of a new Reality TV series, “The Speedway Drivers Search,” which is being shot by John Sandy Productions and Colorado Indy Racing at Houston’s GrandSport Speedway in Texas. Its thrust is on amateur drivers trying to make it as regulars in the Indy Pro Series. No date yet for its debut.

One of the finest season-ending publications seen of late is the American Racing Drivers Club yearbook “Celebrating 68 Years of Midget Auto Racing.” This lavishly illustrated four-color magazine-style wrap-up contains not only detailed reviews of all 20 ARDC race meets held in 2007, but also historic tables dating back to 1939, the club’s first year. For historians it is a bonanza. Our congratulations to ARDC President Ron Lauer and editor Mark Kielblock for a fine job. Try www.ardcmidgets.com. 
 
A recent New York Post story says the popular TV show “Dancing with the Stars” should be retitled “Homewrecking” in light of the many romances it has ruined. The latest came 24 hours after auto racing’s Helio Castroneves and professional dancer Julianne Hough won the latest competition when Helio’s Brazilian fiancée of one year, Aliette Vasquez, called off their engagement. Last year Hough, who won with Olympic skater Apolo Ohno, broke up with her fiancé. Previously Country Crooner Sara Evans split with her husband Craig Schelske amid tales of an affair with her dancing partner. We always thought dancing was vertical.

Wealthy newspaperman Peter Kalikow, the former owner of the New York Post and a Ferrari fanatic who owns 27 of the famous Italian sports cars, recently held his 60th birthday party in the New York City Ferrari showroom! In his honor he was ‘allowed’ to buy No. 28 of the 607 two-tone blue 612 Scaghlietti models to be built, sticker price $350,000!

Members of the St. Louis Auto Racing Fan Club went out of their way to tidy up the remnants of Lake Hill Speedway for a gala reunion there in late November. Lake Hill was the spawning ground for the now-famous Wallace brothers and Kenny Schrader. Club members, new and old, will all get together on Saturday, Jan. 16th, at the Royale Orleans Banquet Center on Telegraph Road in St. Louis for the club’s 41st Banquet of Champions. Tix are $30 each from Wanda Knepper, 1776 Marlo Way, Belleville, Ill. 62226. Make checks payable to SLARFC.

Here’s a hearty pat on the back for New Jersey high school senior and oval tracker Paulie Harraka. After missing 142 school days to go racing during his 3-1/2 years in high school during which he earned a 4.38 grade point average, Paulie graduates next month with a National Honor Society membership and as winner of the Future Business Leaders of America state championship!  Then, thanks to early acceptance, he’s off to North Carolina and Duke University to major in Engineering with a minor in Marketing and Business. Paulie, who this year was a development driver for Richard Childress, had to regularly commute from New Jersey to California to drive a Bill McAnally late model at All American Speedway. He wound up second in 2007 track points there. Paulie says as a student he will continue his racing while at Duke, including returns to California’s All American Speedway to seek the track championship there. It appears Briggs & Stratton and Valvoline are on the inside commercial track with Paulie. We can recall the widespread publicity that pre-war driving sensation Dave Randolph received by just announcing he would attend college, something no one in the 1930s could ever recall a driver ever doing before.     

Old friend Bruce Buffinton of St. Augustine, Fla., bulletins that my recent “Gasket Club” appellation for the United Racing Club in which Offy engines were not allowed, did not prevail in 1970 when John Hanscom started a four-year URC winning career with an Offy-engined car. Obviously the URC Offy ban, initiated when the club was created, had been lifted by that time.

Up in Concord, Calif., Floyd Busby, who for 41 years served as an official with the Bay Cities Racing Ass’n before quitting in disgust after the 2006 season, says his 2008 BCRA Vintage Midget Calendar is available for $18 ppd from Pete Bray, Box 147, Mi Wuk Village, Calif. 95346.

Still trying. Ed Adair of Nashville, Ind., long an advocate of lady racing drivers, says he is unable to find a sponsor for a TV program starring female midget drivers he has created. Hang in there, Ed.

Looking ahead. Donnie Clack, who acquired Georgia’s Lanier National Speedway in 1996, has said track founder Bud Lunsford has agreed to return as general manager. Lunsford reports he’s working on a set of low-cost rules for the 2008 season.

Budweiser may be gone from NASCAR’s Busch Series, but not from the National Hot Rod Ass’n, where it has been the “official beer” for a quarter century. Bud recently signed a multi-year renewal pact with the nation’s leading drag racing body.

Hazel Agajanian, wife of the late racing impresario, J.C. Agajanian, died Dec. 7. She was 93.

Go to jail, lose your deal. Best Buy has moved its NASCAR sponsorship from Haas CNC Racing to Gillett-Evernham Motorsports. Team principal Gene Haas was recently sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for tax evasion. The electronics retailer will be the primary sponsor for 15 Nextel Cup races on the No. 19 Dodge driven by Elliott Sadler.

A thank you to all of the writers and photographers who make NSSN happen each week. We also appreciate those who provide us with tips that make our jobs much easier. In addition, those of you who wrote Industry Insiders features have our gratitude. The range of professions and viewpoints was wide and every one interesting. If you haven’t seen all of the columns, they are available on www.nationalspeedsportnews.com for all to enjoy.

Keep in mind this is the final issue of NSSN for 2007; no more weekly papers until Jan. 9 next year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and a great 2008 to you all.