One of the most accomplished drivers in the ARCA Menards Series of the past 20 years is Frank Kimmel. During his run in ARCA, Kimmel won nine ARCA championships in a 10-year span from 1998 to 2007; all with team owner Larry Clement.
Clement owned an ARCA car from the mid ’90s all the way up to 2009 when Matt Carter ran two races for Clement’s team. Clement scored 75 wins in 340 starts in the ARCA Menards Series as an owner and finished in the top 10 in over 70% of his starts.
In part two of this interview, Clement recalls the story of getting Tony Stewart to drive for his team in ARCA and reflects on his ARCA career.
Read part one of this interview here.
Haas: How did you get Tony Stewart to come down to ARCA?
Clement: A great question. I think that came about in 2001. Ron Dragor, the ARCA president called and he said, “Tony Stewart wants to run the ARCA race [on] Labor Day at DuQuion on a mile and he wants to drive one of [the] 46 cars,” and he said “we’d get some little sponsorship from the series and Bob Sargent, who’s a great promoter. He can come up a little bit.”
He [Dragor] said, “No, it costs a lot more money,” but I said, “Hey, let’s do it.” That was when we were first switching over from Chevys to Fords. Tony was running Pontiacs for Joe Gibbs. We have bought our second Ford. The first Ford that we bought was just a killer. It was a Mark Martin car that he finished second at Phoenix [Raceway]. This Ford that we haven’t even raced yet. We thought it was a really good race car and it was. We get that ready, and I went down to the Knoxville national sprint cars that year when Danny Lasoski was driving Tony’s car. Tony’s suite was right next to our Featherlite Trailers suite when we owned a Featherlite Trailer company [with] my brother and his two sons and I. I went down to qualifying night, and Tony [Stewart] saw and waved me over and I went into his suite. I said, “Hey Tony, I understand [that] we’re having fun playing in the dirt [on] Labor Day.” He was a little more wired back then [and] hadn’t mellowed out a whole lot, not that he ever will.
[Stewart said,] “Oh man, I got a problem.” I said, “What is your problem, Tony?” He said, “I thought you ran Chevys.” I said, “Well, we did until Ryan Newman came in with those Fords and kicked our ass, and I don’t like to lose.” He said, “I got in my contract that I can’t drive anything but a General Motors car.” I said, “Don’t worry…
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