Atlanta: Frank Kimmel preview

2006 ARCA RE/MAX Series Champion, Kimmel Heads to Atlanta for IROC IV: After earning his historical eighth career ARCA RE/MAX Series Championship only two weeks ago at the Iowa Speedway, Frank Kimmel is looking forward to the final IROC (International Race of Champions) event of the 2006 season at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. While Race Three of the IROC Series on the Daytona road course was a bit foreign to Kimmel, the Atlanta Motor Speedway is familiar territory as the Eight-time Champion has competed on the 1.5-mile speedway in ARCA RE/MAX competition on 15 occasions dating back to 1992.

"Atlanta has been a good track for me in the ARCA cars," said Kimmel. "It is one of those tracks that we have always run well at, but never managed to get to victory lane. Of course it will be a lot different in these IROC cars and with the other IROC drivers. All these guys can get pretty crazy and I'm sure that will be the case on Saturday."

In his 15 starts at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Kimmel has earned six poles and nine top-five finishes without a win. But of his now eight ARCA RE/MAX Series Championships, three of those were earned when Atlanta hosted the final ARCA events in 1998, 2000 and 2001. While Kimmel has enjoyed being a part of IROC for the first time in 2006, he also admits that his competitiveness will probably come out even more at this final race of 2006.

"Getting the chance to represent ARCA in the IROC Series this season has been an honor for me and probably one of the coolest things that I have ever been a part of," said Kimmel. "It took some getting used to just to race against some of the best drivers in the world and when we raced at the first event at Daytona in February, I was a little nervous and did not want to make any mistakes. But over the course of this season and this IROC experience, many of these incredible drivers have become friends. I think that is one of the things that have made this such a special experience. I would definitely like to win one of these races and Atlanta just might be the place to pull that off. I think everyone will be pretty competitive here and I have no doubt it will be a real exciting 65 laps."

Kimmel will start in the sixth position for Race Four at Atlanta. The starting positions for this event were determined by inverting the current point's positions of the 12 drivers. Kimmel will once again pilot the No. 46 Magenta-colored IROC car. Race Four will be televised Live on SPEED on Saturday, October 28 with the green flag scheduled for 3:15pm ET.

-credit: lmm