Stories of ARCA’s 60th Anniversary Season:

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Stories of ARCA’s 60th Anniversary Season:
ARCA’s Alabama History Stretches Beyond Talladega
Note: With the Automobile Racing Club of America celebrating its 60th season in
2012, ARCA will look back throughout the season on the racing body’s most
notableand historical moments, chronicling the best stories of every era from ARCA’s
dawnIn 1953 to today.
As the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards travels from last weekend’s
opener at Daytona to Mobile International Speedway – a place where the series has never
raced – a fitting storyline is ARCA’s history in Alabama, a state rich with
racing tradition.(TOLEDO, Ohio) – Alabama is known in racing circles for many of the famous names
who called the state home. One of NASCAR’s first families, the Flocks, hailed
from Fort Payne; Tim, the youngest Flock, won two NASCAR championships in the 1950s.
Bob and Fonty, his brothers, combined for three ARCA victories in 1954 while
also racing in NASCAR.
The members of Hueytown’s Alabama Gang, originally headed by Bobby and Donnie
Allison and Red Farmer, are the most memorable drivers from the state. In 1975, Bobby
won an ARCA Racing Series event at Salem Speedway in the midst of his career as one
of NASCAR’s all-time winningest drivers.
Bobby’s son, Davey, actually made his name in the ARCA Racing Series before
moving on to NASCAR stardom. In 1983, Davey Allison won both ARCA races at Talladega
Superspeedway,and won once at the Alabama track the next year on the way to finishing as the
series’runner-up and Rookie of the Year.
Farmer won the other Talladega race in 1984, just before Allison won his fourth
at the track the following year. Farmer also won at Talladega in 1988, a true
exclamationpoint on a superb era for Alabama drivers in ARCA.
But ARCA’s history moves far beyond those famous drivers and the high banks of
Talladega- which, by the way, will host its 50th ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards
race in May.
In 1961, the ARCA Racing Series first appeared in the state at Birmingham
Speedway.
Ernie Derr won a 250-lap race on November 5, one of his 11 ARCA victories. The
next year, ARCA raced at the fairgrounds in the state’s capital city, Montgomery;
Dick Freeman’s win there was one of his 12.
Huntsville Speedway hosted ARCA in 1963 and 1965, featuring wins by Earl Balmer
and Jack Bowsher, respectively. Bowsher’s 1965 win was one of 25 he earned that
year – out of 37 races – and remains a piece of one of the most dominant seasons
ever turned in by an ARCA competitor.
Next month, after 53 total races in the state and 46 consecutive seasons away
fromany Alabama track not named Talladega, the ARCA Racing Series will celebrate its
60th Anniversary Season by placing its mark at Mobile International Speedway
forthe first time. Located in Irvington, Alabama’s fastest half-mile is under the
newleadership of NASCAR Camping World Truck Series veteran Rick Crawford. A regular
host to weekly action and even several late model championship series, the
trackwill use its first ARCA race to honor ARCA greats like Allison and Farmer – no
strangersto Mobile themsleves – and look to the series’ future.
The Mobile ARCA 200 will take place Saturday, March 10 at Mobile International
Speedway.
The race is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. Mobile will host practice and Menards
PoleQualifying presented by Ansell on Friday, March 9. The event at Mobile will be
ARCA’s First at the track.
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards has crowned an ARCA national
champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 race
tracks in 28 states since its inception. The series has tested the abilities of drivers
and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the
world, visiting tracks ranging from 0.4 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both
paved and dirt surfaces as well as a left- and right-turn road course in its most
recent season. This year, the series will visit Alabama’s Mobile International Speedway
and Minnesota’s Elko Speedway for the first time; ARCA’s first visit to
Minnesota will give ARCA a race in a 29th state.
Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile
Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the
country. Closing in on completing its sixth decade after hundreds of thousands
of miles of racing, ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in three
professional touring series and local weekly events.