ARCA vs World of Outlaws at Elko Speedway

By Jason D Searcy

Two major, but very different, racing series came to our neck of the woods recently.  Seeing those cars on the same track lead me to a question that race fans have wondered about for many years.

How would the speed of the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars compare with the ARCA cars at the same facility?  That unique hypothetical question was answered this Spring at Elko Speedway.

The 900 horsepower and 1400 lb WoO Sprint Cars raced a rain shortened 34 lap event on May 10th.  Fast time in qualifying was set by Sam Hafertepe at 12.507, thats 107.940 mph.  The 3/8 th mile track at Elko Speedway was incredibly smooth and fast with the top groove coming in perfectly by the end of the feature event, the fastest lap time during the race was 13.347 set by Cody Darrah in the Kasey Kahne car.

The heavy 3400 lb and 800 horsepower stock cars in the ARCA series raced a 250 lap event at Elko on June 1st.  Legendary driver Ken Schrader set fast time in qualifying with a 14.449 or 93.432, that is 2 seconds per lap or 15 mph slower than the winged rockets.

Kimmel wins ARCA at Elko Speedway

"This is racing the way it should be," said Frank Kimmel after winning the Akona 250 at Elko Speedway.  "This is such a cool place to race, a lot of fun beating and banging but not all the crashes and wrecks."

Here is the link to the Victory lane video http://arcaracing.com/videos.php?video_id=1965052

Kimmel from Clarksville (IN) finished just 1.358 seconds ahead of Tom Hessert from Cherry Hill (NJ) who started fifth row outside and moved his way to the front of the pack.  "The car was good all night," said Hessert "I thought we were a little better than him at the end but, we just ran out of time."