Frankie Kimmel

Frank James Kimmel Jr. (born August 26, 1990) is an American stock car racing driver. He is the son of Frank Kimmel. He last competed in the ARCA Racing Series for Brother In Law Racing.

Racing career
Kimmel joined the team for the New Jersey race and also ran at Salem for the team, scoring another top ten finish.

The Street Stock is a bit of a side project for Kimmel, but one he still gets to run with some frequency. The last time he put on the firesuit was at Hickory Motor Speedway in November for a Mid-Atlantic Street Stock (MASS) Championship Series event in conjunction with the Mason-Dixon MegaMeltdown.

It didn’t go quite the way Kimmel hoped.

“Last time was Hickory, around the PASS race two months ago,” Kimmel said. “We ran this car with the MASS series there, right until we bent the rear clip when we spun.”

The Street Stock project has been a test of patience for Kimmel and his father, 10-time ARCA Racing Series champion Frank Kimmel. The father-son pairing wanted to try a different approach with this car and are still working to achieve its full potential.

“We actually ran this race two years ago when we first built the car. We struggled. We struggled then and until the end of last year when we ran Myrtle Beach, we’ve struggled with the car the entire time,” he admitted. “It’s a different chassis, we had never built one before. My dad wanted a challenge, he thought it would be a better car if we ever figured it out. We are still working on that part. Two years later, we’re still working on it.”

However, Kimmel has found some success at Dillon, scoring a podium finish in the 75-lap Independence BASH there last July. Kimmel admits to not having the deceptive venue completely figured out, despite many trips there with his Dartfish video analysis company, VK Sports Analysis.

“I do the Dartfish and I watch it, and it looks like a normal track, little less than a half-mile track, but it doesn’t race like that,” Kimmel said. “The turns aren’t the same. The last time we raced there in the middle of the summer, we ran third. We ran good, we were a third-place car.

“I have not figured out three and four yet,” Kimmel added. “We’re really good in one and two. Three and four is goofy. That’s really the only way to describe it. I’ve tried about every different line there, I don’t know that I’ve ever run the same one, and I still haven’t figured it out.”

Still, Kimmel is excited to make the trip to the New Year’s BASH, an event growing in stature among Street Stock events in the nation. This year, for the first time ever, the 109-lap Street Stock race will be recorded for a national television broadcast on. The tape-delayed broadcast will air February 13. In addition to the MAVTV broadcast, race fans will be able to watch a live video stream of the event as a premium member of the Speed51 Network by purchasing a monthly or yearly subscription.

“It’s a great race track,” Kimmel said. “Ron Barfield does a great job. Obviously, with being on and having Speed51 covering it, that shows he’s growing it into one of the biggest Street Stock races of the year, which is really cool.”

Kimmel hopes to make it the end of the marathon Street Stock feature, an improvement on his last appearance in the New Year’s BASH.

“It’s 109 laps this year because it’s the ninth race. We’d like to run them all” said Kimmel. “Last time ran it we battled motor trouble all day. With a restart with 10 to go the motor shut off and we fell back. Finishing inside the top five would be great and run every lap. We don’t carry a ton of expectations because we haven’t quite figured this thing out yet.”

ARCA Racing Series
(key) ( Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led. )