News
Wednesday, August 8, 2007

McDowell Closes in on ARCA Title
By Aaron Fiedler

Not always the most exciting race of the season, this week’s Pennsylvania 200 at Pocono Raceway showed the other side of the oddly shaped 2.5 mile track. Michael McDowell squeaked out his second win of the season, pulling ahead of Jeremy Clements on the front stretch of the final lap, and closing the gap in the points race between he and veteran Frank Kimmel.

Caution Chaos

Another week, more cautions and not too much racing. While I enjoy the racing of the ARCA RE/MAX series I can never remember watching any race that had as many cautions as we have had over the last few weeks. I remember watching the NASCAR Raybestos Brakes Northwest Series and don’t ever recall seeing this much of the races under caution. This week 49 of the 80 laps were under caution. The majority of the race was under caution and that really tends to put me off. Now I couldn’t watch the race Saturday, so I instead taped it and watched it later, but I took notice to the fact that with all the fast forwarding I did through the cautions, there was only about 45 minutes of actual racing. I really cannot offer a good solution to this, as it’s inexperienced drivers getting into situations that they can’t handle. I suppose coupled with the fact that they are driving, for the most part, on large fast tracks creates a scenario that is prime for wrecks. I know I’ll keep watching, I just may not do it the night they come on.

Bobby Gerhart Hurt

Gerhart was involved in a lap 56 wreck where he spun into the wall. The incident was clearly not anyone’s fault, just one of those racing deals. Unfortunately the pack behind were victims of less than superior spotting. Some checked up, others didn’t, resulting in another car getting turned and smacking into Kimmel; the secondary hit sounded harder than the initial incident. Gerhart was able to climb out of the car on his own, but was apparently transported to the hospital not too long after. According to ARCARacing.com, Gerhart fractured his T-6 vertebrae and was to be released from the hospital within the next few days.

Unfortunate for him the combination of inexperienced drivers and crews led to an incident that probably could have been avoided. I hope Gerhart makes a full recovery and is back in the car as soon as possible.

McDowell Chases Kimmel

Frank Kimmel fell victim to a lap 68 incident knocking him out of the race and putting a severe dent in his points lead over rookie Michael McDowell. This is shaping up to be the first year that Kimmel won’t be able to walk away with the championship. He has competition this year, and I think it’s great. Just 20 points separate the two, but with 9 races still left in the season, there is a lot of opportunity for others to catch up and for those two to fall. Is this the season that Frank Kimmel finally falls? Stay tuned to see.

This season is shaping up to be an interesting one. A rookie rocks the boat and the king may just be dethroned. I was happy to see the second time around at Pocono provided an excellent finish and overall good race. Hopefully the remainder of the season sees racing like that, but with fewer cautions. The next race is Saturday at Nashville and will be live on Speed. So as always if you haven’t been watching the ARCA races yet, it’s never too late to start.