KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Frank Kimmel looked at the two drivers who qualified directly behind him after he’d won the ARCA RE/MAX BPU 200 pole Friday at the Kansas Speedway and quipped, “Don’t you guys need get back to school?”

The two youngsters  Stuart Kirby and Chad Blount, twentysomethings who could pass as sons of the 40-year-old Kimmel  fired back: “Don’t you need to get to the retirement home?”

That’s the kind of respect the all-time leading money winner of the ARCA RE/MAX series gets?

Yep, and Kimmel knows it.

The three-time ARCA RE/MAX Series champ, whose fast start this year  three victories in the first six races  could push him to yet another crown, won’t sneak up on anyone today when he tries to win both the BPU 200 and the Winston West Series KansasSpeedway.com 150.

“The first step is to try and be good in the Winston West race and put yourself in position to win,” said Kimmel, who won the BPU pole in 162.269 mph and took third in Winston West qualifying. “If you do, than you try to do the same thing in the ARCA race.”

That’s similar to last year, when Kimmel nearly pulled off the double win in the inaugural day of racing at the Speedway.

Kimmel won the Winston West and thought he had the BPU 200 in the bag with a marginal lead and only a handful of laps left.

“I’ll be honest with you, with about six or seven (laps) to go when I passed Jason (Jarrett) last year and started pulling away, I thought, ‘Man this feels pretty good here,'” said Kimmel, who races a bright orange Ford with a yellow No. 46 plastered on the side.

“You should never think that, because as soon as you do, you break a rocker arm and he passes back.”

And that’s exactly what happened as Jarrett, son of NASCAR driver Dale Jarrett, flew past him on his way to the first BPU title.

“This year we won’t go out there and sneak up on anybody,” Kimmel said of his success last season. “I don’t know if it helps or not, but it’s cool.”

Lately, Kimmel has had a lot of cool moments. Like last weekend, when he finished the Coca-Cola 600  NASCAR’s big-boy Winston Cup race  in 26th place.

But even with such an adrenaline-filled race on his resume, Kimmel’s top task is claiming another ARCA RE/MAX crown  and that continues today.

“It’s like coming home and playing ball with the guys in the back yard or whatever,” Kimmel said. “It’s a lot more relaxing.

“The difference of going to some place and hoping to make the show, qualifying for the show and then trying to run for 4 1/2 hours versus coming here, trying to shoot for the pole and trying to win the race. It’s just a whole different mind set.”

But now his mind is set on holding off those up-and-coming challengers.

Or is that their mind-set?

“We may have to gang up on him,” said Blount, half-jokingly. Kirby nodded in agreement.