With just three races remaining in ’06, Kimmel has lengthened his point spread by 250 over runner-up racer & 4-time Daytona winner Bobby Gerhart. Gerhart’s career-best ARS points finish was third in 1999. However, heading to Talladega beyond Salem, Gerhart leads Kimmel in the Superspeedway Challenge championship by just 5 points. Talladega will be the final superspeedway event of 2006, and will ultimately determine this year’s superspeedway champion. The Superspeedway Challenge championship is a title within a title basing its point totals on an accumulation of superspeedway points only.

Also lurking is 3rd-in-points Billy Venturini, the spring winner at Salem, who has closed to within 225 of Gerhart. Venturini held off Salem winner/veteran Ken Schrader in this year’s spring race to earn his career-first ARCA RE/MAX Series victory. After a string of dnf’s, Venturini has strung together eight top-10 finishes in his last nine attempts.