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Rookie Rabenold Ends Season Solid in Belmont's 14
TOLEDO OH (10-19-09) - After a promising start in 2007, it really looked like Kory Rabenold's career was about to take off. The Slatington, Pennsylvania driver, in equipment fielded by his father and crew chief Ken Rabenold, debuted with a respectable 12th place finish at Pocono Raceway. Rabenold made 10 ARCA RE/MAX Series starts through 2008 with similar success before the economy unraveled.
Business at his father's auto body repair shop was down, and so were the funds to go racing. Then came 2009 when the recession dug in deeper. Outside of some local modified racing driving for someone else, there was nothing left in the piggy bank to go ARCA racing. Then, Andy Belmont called.
"If it wasn't for Andy, I wouldn't have done any ARCA racing this year," said Rabenold.
"He called me halfway through the year about running his 1 car. We just didn't have the funds to do that, so he made me an offer to run his 14 car, to keep the car owner points up. So I moved to North Carolina, moved in with Andy and worked on the car all day in the shop, me and another guy.
"We knew going in we weren't going to be able to race on new tires, and that we didn't have any sponsorship, so we made due with what we had."
Making due for Rabenold also meant sharing pit stalls with Belmont's primary car - the 1 car.
"Sharing pit boxes was a disadvantage, but we knew that plan going in. The 1 car always got first dibs, and there were times when I really needed to pit but I couldn't; we had to wait. We shared the same over-the-wall guys, but, again, we knew that going in. Andy's guys did both cars. My dad was my crew chief all year, and he'd just meet us at the track."
And without all the luxuries to run up front, Rabenold showed steady improvement the moment he sat in the car.
After a 24th place finish at Iowa Speedway, incremental progress followed everywhere - 20th at Kentucky, 17th at Berlin, 16th at Pocono, 15th at Springfield, 14th at Toledo and 13th at DuQuoin.
"Running everywhere (starting with 10th race Iowa) was a huge learning curve for me. Andy really taught me a lot, about the draft, about everything. I would have never learned what I know now without Andy and the opportunities he gave me.
"I definitely liked the dirt tracks. Outside of running some little dirt tracks in a quarter midget when I was five, racing on dirt was new to me. The whole deal was a lot of fun. Getting a little sideways, running on the edge, running loose through and off the corners was a blast. I definitely want to try that again.
"Pocono's my favorite track - part because it's local, but it's just a lot of fun. The three-turn deal changes everything; and we always ran decent there.
"We struggled on some of the other bigger speedway tracks like Chicagoland (18th finish) and Kentucky. We were way too tight at the Rock. We were on old tires and that place just isn't good on old tires, but we brought it home in one piece everywhere, and that was our main goal."
Through it all, and after missing the first nine races of the year without a ride, Rabenold finished 18th in driver points. Rabenold's solid second half also helped keep the 14 car up in the car owners points. When the final checkered flag came down on the season, Rabenold's car owner Jennifer Belmont ended up 13th in owner points. All things considered, Rabenold's season was a success, driver-wise and car owner-wise.
Next stop for Rabenold - the ARCA RE/MAX Series championship awards banquet Saturday, December 5th.
"We're definitely planning on going to the banquet, hopefully do a little networking while were there. We'd like to get our own team back and running again, but money's tight right now. My dad's auto body repair business is down, like most things are right now, but I'm going to keep trying. We've got some marketing people out there working for us to try and get us a full ARCA program, so we'll see. We still have three ARCA cars of our own we'd like to sell, maybe replenish with some more updated stuff. We're thinking about trying to run some truck races next year too."
Outside of a short vacation in Florida with his girlfriend this week, it'll soon be back to work fulltime in his father's shop, painting and repairing cars. If nothing develops ARCA-wise and Truck-wise for 2010, Rabenold is not opposed to breaking out the modified for some local short track stuff.
"I definitely want to race. I want to go as far as I can. But if we can't step up, I don't have a problem with going back to modifieds, I just want to race."
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