Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing 9 time ARCA Champion Frank Kimmel about the whys and hows of the formation of his own team at the end of 2008 and any future plans, etc. Frank was very gracious with his time and as that interview was coming to an end, I asked if he would consent to a little more time and share something from his past…a race, a particular racing incident…just anything he felt he might like to share with our readers. The following is the result of that portion of his interview.
“I said this one time at a banquet a few years ago. We had won a championship, and my mom was still with us at that time. She has (since) passed away. It’s been 2 years now. I think one of the most touching stories, one of my earliest memories, was that we were driving to a race. Dad was driving and Bill and I were riding in the back of the pickup. I was around 6 to 8 years old, and Bill was 10 to 12, somewhere around there. We actually rode in the back of a stake bed pickup because it was crowded up front. Sometimes my sisters would go, so there may be my mom, dad and 2 sisters in the front of this standard pickup truck. There were no crew cabs back then. I remember it was late, dad had raced and we were trying to get back home so he could get ready the next day and go race at another race track. Mom was reaching in a little Styrofoam cooler, because there wasn’t plastic igloos back then, and she was reaching in there with a wash cloth and getting it cold and putting on his neck so he could stay awake. (Frank’s voice breaking ever so slightly)
“That goes back to the story I told earlier (previous article with Frank: Frank Kimmel “This Is Our Life, This Is What We Do”) that I think sometimes some of these kids (young drivers coming in to the upper racing series) don’t understand (what tough times really are). And another thing, riding in the back of a pickup truck. If you do that now it’s called child abuse. It was a cool time to live through. Our’s was a racing family and that’s what it took. Sometimes I think, nowadays, people might miss that a little bit.”
“My dad raced all through Indiana, through Kentucky and a lot of the dirt tracks back in the 60’s. He started in ’48 on an asphalt track right here in southern Indiana. That’s all he did, was race on short tracks for a living, if you can imagine. We would run on Fridays, Saturdays and twice on Sundays and sometimes on a Wednesday night show if there was one around. It was a busy time and there was one race car. He might have one crew member tag along sometimes in a passenger car, but normally, it was mom, dad, me, bill and maybe one or two crew members and my older brother Thom, before he had to go to Vietnam, was right there with him, too. It was a family oriented deal. He was racing his butt off and making a living.”
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I remember dad telling a story about racing a guy who was leading the feature and dad, pretty much, moved him out of the way, knocked him up and out of the way and went on to win the feature. The guy came over and was upset and said ‘Bill, what did you do that for?’ and dad said ‘what do you charge that guy to drive that race car?’ And the guy said, ‘Oh, I don’t charge him Bill, I just do it for the fun of it.” So dad said, ‘well I’m doing it to make a living, so, get the hell out of my way.’ That’s exactly what he told the guy. So those were different days and different times back then.”
So what did Frank’s father say when he said he wanted to race, as well? “It was never a question. He didn’t expect us to do it. It was not like that at all, but, when he saw that I was going to do it he thought it was a natural progression. He thought that is what Bill and I should do. He knew it was a drug, an addiction and he gave it to us, so, he was kind of stuck with it.”
“We have breakfast with him every morning. We go up and actually meet at Steak And Shake here in Clarksville about a quarter to eight every morning. He’s doing great. He’s 81 and he’s real happy right now. They just had a community yard sale around his house and he made something like $2000.”
“We invite him all the time to go to the races with us and he’ll go to Salem because it’s so close and Kentucky Speedway. We’re not racing there this year, but when we are there, he is always there. He’ll come to some of the close tracks. He didn’t go to Talladega this year, but, sometimes he does because I have 2 sisters near Atlanta, so he gets to see them. If it’s someplace he wants to go or someplace he wants to see he will go. If not, if it’s on television he just about stays home because he says he has a better view from home.”
After spending so much time speaking with Frank on such a wide variety of racing issues, his history and the current racing environment, I may just pick his memory at some point in the near future for another story to share with our readers, if he has the time and is gracious enough to go through all the questions I hurl at him. He was never at a loss for words, thankfully, and was very accommodating. Thank you, Frank!
It is evident that this guy…a father, a brother, a son and a racer is really a great example of what racing was, is and even more importantly, what it is suppose to be. The guy is a 9 time ARCA champ, after all! It is amazing for me to realize of all the many racing stories and accomplishments of Frank’s career he could choose from he chose to speak of his father’s racing efforts to support his family and of a particular kind thought of his mother, tending to her tired and weary husband on the road home from a race. Yet, that truly was “the way it was” for Frank and his family. Again, many thanks Frank and good luck.
If you are a facebook junkie, be sure to follow Frank under the name Frank Kimmel. And be sure to check out his sponsors at www.menards.com and www.ansellconstruction.com .
