ROCKINGHAM — Only two names were atop the standings during the fourth annual Polar Bear 150 — Chuck Barnes Sr. or Frank Kimmel II.

After 149 miles, it came down to a final lap showdown between the pair. Kimmel had his No. 72 car out in front until a last-second, last-ditch pass by Barnes at the finish line, allowed the Louisville, Ky. native to capture his third Frank Kimmel Street Stock Nationals Polar Bear title Saturday evening at the Rockingham Speedway.

Barnes slipped past Kimmel on the inside to earn the victory by a margin of .016 seconds. It was the closest finish at “The Rock” since Matt Kenseth defeated Kasey Kahne by .010 seconds in the last NASCAR Sprint Cup race at the track in 2004.



“I was prepared to take second,” said Barnes from Rockingham Speedway’s victory lane. “He was a little better than me on those longer runs. He just got loose, and I just got underneath him in (turn) four on that last lap.”

The duo led all of the laps on the day and exchanged the lead 17 times. Kimmel wanted to be in the position of the hunter instead of the hunted going into the final lap. However, once he was in the lead he thought his car was going to be good enough to hold off Barnes.

“It seemed like I was terrible off of (turn) three,” said Kimmel. “But since it was so loose, the car continued to turn through four, which made it really fast down the front stretch. I could pass him down the front, because we had a little more motor. My game plan was to be second at the white flag, and pass him on the last lap and keep him on my outside. It just didn’t work out that way.

“I couldn’t block him because he was right beside me. He was in the right place at the right time. Whoever was second going into the final lap was going to be in the catbird’s seat. I was really, really loose but I wasn’t letting off the gas at that point. I still don’t know what happened.”



Despite the photo finish, both Barnes and Kimmel had to overcome problems during the race, which threatened to knock them out of contention.

Barnes was caught in the middle of an incident on lap 33, which sent his No. 5 car spinning in turn one.

“We really got lucky today,” Barnes said. “It’s tough racing with all these lap cars with some running 50 miles per hour slower than others. But it’s fun passing all those cars on a track like this.”



Kimmel cut a right rear tire during a caution with 46 laps left and fell back to 12th place on the restart. He worked his way back to front 27 laps later, setting up the fantastic finish.

The yellow flag was shown 11 times for 57 laps and of the 54 cars which started the race, only 10 were on the lead lap at the end.

— Sports editor Shawn Stinson can be reached at 910-997-3111, ext. 14, or by email at sstinson@heartlandpublications.com

Final results

1. Chuck Barnes Sr.

2. Frank Kimmel II

3. Cliff Gaumond

4. Clint Watkins

5. Tony Wonway

6. Shawn Smith

7. Jason Leatherwood

8. Bryan Silas

9. Cody Buford

10. Bryan Thomas

11. Donald Vaughn

12. Lee Newsome

13. Rodney Glass

14. Cooper Fassen

15. Chad Hall

16. Jeff Berg

17. Gary Davis

18. Sean Calway

19. Charles Hutto

20. David Coonfield

21. Joe Holp

22. Jeremy Gerstner

23. Chris Harmon

24. Chris Flower

25. Scott LeBlanc

26. Joshua Sigler

27. Wallace Leatherwood

28. Willie Reyns

29. Rusty Alton

30. Nathan Peckham

31. Jeff Melton

32. Michael Brown

33. Brett Hudson

34. Billy Ammons

35. John McElrath

36. John Guker

37. Donald Lamonds

38. Curtis Peeples

39. John Wesley

40. Tab Boyd

41. Brandon Brown

42. Don Avarez

43. Scott Aiello

44. Keith Bissinger

45. Jason Drummonds

46. William Ashton

47. Jason Garver

48. Jay Baker

49. Andy Ford

50. Greg Grindstaff

51. Stephen Jones

52. Phillip Odom

53. Bobby East