It’s amazing to think that a hall of fame driver such as Skip Arp had never won a touring series title. But now, for the first time in a career that spans more than 40 years, he can add a series championship to his long list of accomplishments.
“I’m not a points racer,” Arp, of Georgetown, Tennessee, said. “I don’t like to be out there driving around to get points when my car is not good — I just don’t like doing that.”
Arp, a National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame inductee, ran for points only three times in his career. He won a track championship in 1982 at the now-defunct Atomic Speedway in Lenoir City, Tennessee. Arp finished runner-up to the Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series points title in 1998. And, this past year, he participated full-time in the Topless Outlaws Dirt Late Model Series.
“We started out just doing okay, but we were enjoying racing,” said Arp. “We ran a couple more races and we won. The next thing I knew we were seeing that we had a chance to win the championship. It just worked out for us.”
Arp had retired from racing in 2018, but at the urging of car owner Stanley “Beaver” Best (pictured in lead phtoo), he returned to the seat of a dirt late model in 2020.
(For more on Arp’s reunion with Best, read “Skip Arp: Back in Racing, Back in Victory Lane.”)
The championship didn’t come easy. He battled Drew Collins, of Auburn, Georgia, to the very last race of the season. Arp won the title, Collins earned Rookie of the Year for the series.
“I raced with Drew’s daddy years ago,” Arp said. “Drew is a fine young racer. I have a lot of respect for him.”
As with much of his dirt late model racing career, Skip Arp remains noncommittal on running for points this season. He looks to race 10 to 15 events in 2024.
“We haven’t given it much thought,” said Arp. “My goal is simply keeping healthy and running good enough to win when I’m on the racetrack.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
