By Dustin Dow
The Cincinnati Enquirer

When the ARCA RE/MAX Series brings its show to Kentucky Speedway on Friday and Saturday, there will be no NASCAR race to help support the "minor-league" ARCA series.

WEEKEND EVENTS

FRIDAY • Admission: $20 • Gates open: 3 p.m. • Qualifying: 6-8 p.m.   SATURDAY • Admission: $30 • Gates open: 4 p.m. • Legends series race: 4:30 p.m. • Tammy Cochran Concert: 5:30 p.m. • ARCA RE/MAX Channel 5-205: 8 p.m.

In a move replicated at just three of its nine major speedways, ARCA will be the feature event this weekend in Kentucky. Instead of combining the Channel 5-205 with a Winston Cup, Busch or Craftsman Truck Series race, Kentucky Speedway is betting on local ARCA interest to compensate for not having a tie-in to a major race.

"At Kentucky Speedway, they come out and support us on a standalone basis," ARCA president Ron Drager said.

Last year, the ARCA RE/MAX race drew 27,575 fans to Kentucky Speedway, second only to Kansas Speedway for a standalone race, Drager said.

Twelve of ARCA's 22 races this season are standalones, but only three are held at major speedways that can accommodate large crowds: Kentucky, Kansas and Chicagoland Speedway. The other 10 races are held at major tracks in conjunction with one from the NASCAR series.

"Our fans in our marketplace just get it," said Kentucky Speedway general manager Mark Cassis. "ARCA will run two, sometimes three (cars) wide, and it will stick. That's why we can put on a standalone series."

There is also little room on Kentucky's current schedule to combine the ARCA race with a major series. Without a Winston Cup weekend, Kentucky has just three major race series weekends between the Busch, Craftsman and Indy Racing League series. Those events already have minor NASCAR races tied into the race weekend.

But as long as they are racing with NASCAR at some tracks, ARCA drivers don't seem to mind driving standalone once in a while at a major track.

"It's amazing how much of a following this racetrack has for ARCA," ARCA points leader Frank Kimmel said. "Fans love to watch ARCA race here. I like doing standalone here, because we're the main show. When you're with Winston Cup, you're kind of overshadowed. But it's very important for us to be at Winston Cup events because of the sponsorship and media opportunities."

Drager said ARCA's success at Kentucky Speedway dates to the 1950s when ARCA began racing in the Tristate area in Louisville, Salem, Ind., and Kil-Kare Speedway in Xenia.

"As the series has evolved," Drager said, "the reason they have success at Kentucky is because people are familiar with the product in this area."

HI-TECH TICKETS: Kentucky Speedway will debut a new ticketing system at this weekend's race. Fans who enter the speedway will have their tickets scanned by a bar-code-reading machine designed to detect counterfeit tickets and make replacing lost tickets easier.

YOUTH INVASION: Seventeen-year-old Shelby Howard will race in the Channel 5-205 two weeks after becoming the youngest winner in ARCA history. Howard beat Kimmel and won his first race at 17-years, nine months, two months earlier than former record holder Kyle Busch, who earned the record April 11 with a win in Nashville. Busch is still the youngest ARCA driver to win on a superspeedway track.

E-mail ddow@enquirer.com