NEWTON, Iowa — Nine-time defending ARCA RE/MAX Series champion Frank Kimmel has found a couple of downsides associated with starting a new team.
Finding sponsorship for a start-up team hasn’t been an easy task, and weather tends to impact new teams more than others.
Both were clearly evident last weekend as the ARCA series rolled into Iowa Speedway for the Prairie Meadows 250, the first race of the season at the seven-eighths-mile track.
Kimmel’s red No. 44 Ford, a former Robert Yates Racing machine, was completely bare of sponsorship. That’s not what one would expect of a car driven by man with a record nine series titles and 71 victories.
“Yeah, it’s a little different,” Kimmel said with a chuckle Saturday morning in the garage area. “The economy has everyone nervous.”
Rain washed out all on-track activity on Friday, pushing the lone practice session of the weekend to a single session Saturday morning and forcing qualifying to be scrapped.
The field was set by 2007 owner points, putting Larry Clement’s new driver, Matt Carter, on the pole and forcing Kimmel to start 39th.
“We felt like we had a car that could qualify in the top 10,” Kimmel said. “We’ll just try to stay of trouble. We have plenty of time. You just try to avoid the carnage and get to the end.”
That’s indeed what Kimmel did, coming home a solid third. In three races to date, Kimmel has finished fifth, fourth and now third.

• Weather pushed the start of practice to 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning, but track-drying efforts on race morning pushed that back. Cars took to the track behind the pace car at 9:15 a.m., and finally got the green at 10.
The already-short practice session was cut shorter when Michael Annett had an oil line come off, resulting in his Bill Davis Racing Toyota catching fire along the frontstretch.
Annett pulled his car to a stop near turn one and climbed out uninjured while his team got the spare car out.
“Our cars are so close it really doesn’t matter,” Annett said. “We’ll take some stuff from that one, and put it on this one. We were seventh on the board when we blew up. It was really good.”

• Also impressed with the Rusty Wallace-designed track was Barry Dodson, Wallace’s crew chief from his 1989 NASCAR Winston (now Sprint) Cup championship season.
“This is probably the best track I’ve ever been in, bar none,” said Dodson, now crew chief for young Gabi DiCarlo. “I was working to help develop Steven Wallace when Rusty was talking about this facility. You experience the three big things here: handling, aerodynamics and horsepower. It’s a great facility.
“I don’t see how NASCAR couldn’t look here,” Dodson added, noting he feels the sanctioning body should start with a Craftsman Truck Series and move up from there. “It is an ideal race track.”