BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — August 18, 2014 — Following a runner-up finish on the second preliminary night of the Knoxville Nationals, Kraig Kinser and his team have been on a roll. They wrapped up sprint car racing’s biggest event with a 10th-place finish and carried that momentum into a trio of races in the Midwest this past week and weekend. Kinser finished among the top-five in all three races, at three different tracks in a pair of states for the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series.
Kinser finished third at Junction Motor Speedway in Nebraska on August 12. He followed that up with a fourth-place finish at River Cities Speedway in North Dakota on August 15. Kinser wrapped up the trio of races with a fifth-place showing at Nodak Speedway, also in North Dakota, aboard the Mesilla Valley Transportation/Casey’s General Store/King Racing Products Maxim.
At Junction Motor Speedway, Kinser started on the outside of the front row. He ran among the top-five for the duration of the 30-lap main event en route to a third-place finish. He slipped back to fifth just before the halfway point of the race and then powered his way back to third on laps 20 and 21. Kinser opened the night at Junction Motor Speedway as the sixth-fastest qualifier, which helped him earn a spot in the dash after a fifth-place finish in his heat race. He started on the pole of the dash and finished second in that six-lap contest.
“I think it just caught us off guard how the bottom came in, in (turns) one and two there as good as it did,” said Kinser after the race at Junction Motor Speedway. “I got up there and I was just bouncing around the first couple of laps, fell back a little bit and I just had to scrape to get back up there. It was tough to pass and we were still ripping around there pretty quick on the feature time. So the car started coming to me later on the runs went. By the end of it I felt pretty good but by that time the white flag was already out.”
Kinser started eighth in what turned out to be a caution-plagued 40-lap A-Feature at River Cities Speedway. He used a strong start to gain two spots at the drop of the green flag and by the time the first red flag of the night flew on the fourth circuit he was fourth. A restart on the seventh lap saw Kinser moved into second and close on leader and eventual winner Daryn Pittman. He would make another bid for the lead on lap-23 going side-by-side with Pittman. Kinser was running third on the final lap, when Cody Darrah slipped by him at the line, with the latter ending up fourth. A total of four yellow flag and two red flag flew during the race.
“I just made a little mistake on that last lap,” he said. “I ran the bottom and it was pretty good. I went in hard and Cody (Darrah) went to the top. It’s just the way that it was. I can’t complain, though with another top-five finish. I had worried we would get behind, I just didn’t expect it there at the end.”
The native of Bloomington, Indiana, took the green flag on the outside of the front row at Nodak Speedway. He lost one spot at the start, but would remain in the top-five for the rest of the 35-lap race at the three-eighths-mile, which was slowed by a trio of caution flags, on his way to a fifth-place performance. Kinser opened the night as the fourth-quickest driver in time trials. He finished fourth in his heat race to put himself in the dash, where he came home second.
“Another top-five is good for us,” said Kinser. “You never want to slip back when you start on the front row, but we are happy just to be starting up there. We’ve really seemed to turn a corner the last couple weeks and have been unloading fast right off the truck each night. Hopefully we can keep this going and we seem to have found a good balance for the car that is working on variety of tracks.”
Kinser, who is currently ninth in the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series championship standings, returns to action this coming weekend at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for the running of the Oil City Cup.
Kraig Kinser Racing would like to thank Casey’s General Stores, Mesilla Valley Transportation, King Racing Products, Maxim, Aerodine Composites, Sander Engineering, Integra Shocks,All Star Performance, FK Rod Ends, Brown & Miller Racing Solutions, Bell, KSE Racing Products, ButlerBuilt, Schoenfeld Headers, Donovan Engineering, Fel-Pro, Brodix, Wilwood,Dyer’s, Barnes Systems, Ringer Gloves, Jakes Custom Golf Carts, and Ben Cook Racing Limited for their continued support.
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For the latest news on Kraig Kinser, visit http://www.kraigkinser.com, and follow Kraig on Twitter at http://twitter.com/
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