ARCA Racing Offers Value As
Well As Good Racing
By Dino Oberto
Twice each year the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) shares the billing with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Pocono Raceway and in less than a week’s time the two stock car touring giants will again converge at the 2.5-mile tri oval in Long Pond for the Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 and Pennsylvania ARCA 200, August 1-3.
ARCA is considered by many in the industry to be America’s second best stock car series. It serves as a proving ground for developmental drivers, has a core group of regular stars and also affords the opportunity for a variety of local drivers to race on a big league level whereas they would seldom get such a chance with NASCAR.
ARCA has been around nearly as long as NASCAR and is actually a spin-off. Founder John Marcum started the series back in 1953 after working as an official for Bill France, Sr.
Since then ARCA, who has real estate mogul RE/MAX as its title sponsor, has become one of the premier motorsports touring groups in the country. A deep history and lots of tradition has made the series both driver and fan appealing. 
“To tell the truth I don’t know exactly where we rate on the ricter scale in terms of one-two-three-four-five. There’s no doubt the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is number one, as it should be. It is not our goal to be number one. That’s NASCAR’s right and they earned the right to always be number one in our book,” said ARCA PR/Media Director Don Radebaugh.
“Our niche in the industry really has been a steppingstone series. It’s a good place to come and hone your super speedway skills with hopes of moving on someday. If that makes us number two so be it. I don’t think we strive to position ourselves on top of the charts. We just try to be the best we can be in what we do and one of the things we do is train young up and coming drivers who want to make a career in the NASCAR ranks.”
Radebaugh explained how sponsors are following that same path. NASCAR teams ask for more and more money each year from sponsors. 10-million dollars these days may get you classified as a middle-of-the-pack runner. If you want to be a headliner then it’s going to cost nearly double that figure.
The top NASCAR teams have bigger budgets than most third world countries. At the same time potential sponsors are reevaluating the way they look to market their wares. For those sponsors who may not be able to foot the bill of a top NASCAR team but still want to test the waters of sponsorship then ARCA is a good alternative.
“Drivers come to our series to get experience with hopes of moving on which they do. The same could be said really in terms of sponsors. You can’t help but recognize the value in stock car racing in this day and age. It’s got the attention of corporate America,” said Radebaugh.
“For a new company that wants to get involved in stock car racing, instead of dropping 10 to 20 million (dollars) on the NASCAR series they can get their feet wet in the ARCA RE/MAX Series. Say they throw a half-million at it to fund a team for all year. If they like what they see and like the return on their investment they can again take another step into the NASCAR league and spend a lot more money.
“So we train drivers and we also provide the potential opportunity for sponsors to come in and get their feet wet. If in fact they come into ARCA, A.K.A. the stock car world and if they don’t like what they see then their expenditures haven’t been that they lost maybe 20-million (dollars). However, if they like what they see then they too can move on.”
Like NASCAR, there is lots of tradition with ARCA. The difference is they seem to reflect more on their roots while continuing to forge ahead.
“A lot of times change is good but in some respects part of our secret to success has been as much as things change, keep things the same,” said Radebaugh.
“Go back and look at the dirt tracks. We were born on the dirt in ’53 and we still race on the dirt. Its nose to the grindstone, mind your own business and promote your product as best you can and go down the road from there.
“But as much as we want to change to make our sport better which we’ll strive to do and whatever those changes may be, there are many aspects to our series which we want to keep the same. I think we aredoing well and want to continue to do well for ourfans, drivers and sponsorsjust the same as we always have with an eye on improving wherever and whenever we can.”
“These guys, (ARCA) have been running here since 1969 and I wouldn’t get rid of them for anything. I mean I can try to make more money if I went with a Nationwide race or something like that but these ARCA people are very important to us and to NASCAR and it’s to our advantage to keep them,” said Pocono CEO Dr. Joe Mattioli.
The Pennsylvania 200 rolls off at 1:00pm Saturday, August 2nd. Scheduled practice is from 10:15am to 11:55am Friday, August 1st with pole qualifying slated for 1:45 Friday afternoon.
Catch all the Pocono ARCA RE/MAX Series action at arcaracing.com offering LIVE Timing & Scoring of all on-track activities as well as LIVE flag-to-flag streaming audio coverage of the race through the ARCA Racing Network exclusively on arcanation.com presented by Team Glock Racing.
Tickets for the ARCA RE/MAX Series Pennsylvania 200 and the NASCAR Srint Cup Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylania 500 event at Pocono are available by contacting the Pocono Raceway Ticket Office at 1-800-RACEWAY (1-800-722-3929), or through http://www.poconoraceway.com.
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