ARCA’s 60th Anniversary Season Opens at Daytona

(TOLEDO, Ohio) – As ARCA’s 60th Anniversary Season opens Saturday at Daytona International Speedway, as many as 60 drivers will set their sights on winning the historic season’s most grand race, and maybe – just maybe – becoming the 30th person to win an ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards championship.

First, though, those drivers will have to stop the man whose performances on the 2.5-mile superspeedway oval since 1999 have made him the dean of Daytona: defending Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 winner Bobby Gerhart.

Gerhart pitted on Lap 5 in last year’s 80-lap contest, took the lead on Lap 20, and held the point without returning to pit road over the race’s final three quarters to edge eventual Rookie of the Year Chris Buescher and Matt Merrell for his seventh Daytona victory. Gerhart, driving a familiar Lucas Oil Slick Mist-branded Chevrolet, also won the Daytona opener in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2010.

“Daytona is so special to me personally,” Gerhart said recently. “I grew up coming with my parents to Daytona. I was very vocal at a very young age that I would one day race here. In the back of my head, I kept telling myself I would win here too. It is such a privilege to race here, and I’ve never lost sight of that fact.

“We build cars exclusively for Daytona; they don’t go anywhere else. Everything else is off the plate. Even though Talladega is very similar to Daytona, we don’t mix the cars between the tracks. For me, there is Daytona, and then there is everywhere else.”

Only in 2006 at Daytona did Gerhart lead more laps (78) than he led last season (61), making last year’s ride to a triumph one of his most dominant. In his seven victories, he has led 395 laps – or just over 56 per race. In all, the 53-year-old from Lebanon, Pa. has seven wins, nine top-fives, and 13 top-10s in his 24 starts at the track since 1988.

The 80-lap, 200-mile Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 airs live on SPEED at 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, and television viewers for the year’s first major stock car race will see a field focused on stopping Gerhart in his 25th start at the superspeedway and the 49th for ARCA since 1964. The broadcast will feature a special history vignette as part of ARCA’s 60th Anniversary celebration, and 2011 series champion Ty Dillon will join the race analysts for a short period.

One team to watch will most certainly be Venturini Motorsports, which led December testing at Daytona with five drivers in the top seven. Alex Bowman drove a best lap of 47.787 seconds (188.336 mph) to top teammates John Stancill, Brennan Poole, and Ryan Reed, but of those four, only Poole and Reed are entered for the team this weekend.

Nelson Canache, who tested seventh fastest, is entered for Venturini, as is 2009 NASCAR K&N Pro Series West Rookie of the Year and current NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Paulie Harraka. Mark Thompson, a veteran of 10 Daytona starts, will also race for the team.

Seventy-nine drivers tested in December, signaling that the February entry list may grow over previous lists. Indeed, the 60 cars currently entered represent a total not seen since 2008, when 65 cars attempted to race in ARCA’s season opener.

Notable drivers entered include: Buescher, last season’s second-place finisher in the final standings for Roulo Brothers Racing; Bowman, who will race for Cunningham Motorsports in his attempt at a third victory; Frank Kimmel, who will make his first start for his new team, ThorSport Racing; and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Rookie of the Year Joey Coulter.

Max Gresham, Cale Gale, Brandon McReynolds, and Tom Hessert are all entered, as is Mikey Kile, who will return to a full-time role in the ARCA Racing Series after finishing fifth in points in 2010.

Leilani Mϋnter will drive for Tony Marks Racing, and Milka Duno will compete for Eddie Sharp Racing.

Outside of Gerhart, no other entered driver has won at Daytona International Speedway.

On-track activity begins with a four-hour practice at 1 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, February 16. Menards Pole Qualifying presented by Ansell begins at 2 p.m. on Friday, February 11, and the series will host a final, 45-minute practice at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

The complete 2012 event schedule – featuring 20 races at 18 tracks – is available at ARCARacing.com.

The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards has crowned an ARCA national champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 race tracks in 28 states since its inception. The series has tested the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, visiting tracks ranging from 0.4 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as a left- and right-turn road course in its most recent season. This year, the series will visit Alabama’s Mobile International Speedway and Minnesota’s Elko Speedway for the first time; ARCA’s first visit to Minnesota will give ARCA a race in a 29th state.

Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the country. Closing in on completing its sixth decade after hundreds of thousands of miles of racing, ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in three professional touring series and local weekly events.