Kraig Kinser Perseveres at Knoxville

Kraig Kinser. - Photo Courtesy of Paul Arch

By Kraig Kinser Racing PR

Bloomington, Ind.—April 29, 2012—One of the great things about competing with the World of Outlaws is that there is always another race just around the corner, to quickly put a tough night in the rearview mirror. After some bad luck on the first lap of the main event of the Mediacom Shootout on Saturday night at Knoxville Raceway in Iowa, Kraig Kinser and his team dug deep, and persevered after making a couple of trips to the work area during the A-Feature, and were able to finish the main event.

“It was just one of those nights,” said Kinser. “We’ll focus on the speed that we had in our Hendrickcars.com machine early in the night and on the positives and move forward. We qualified in the right spot and made it into the dash and put ourselves in a good starting position for the feature and that’s all you can ask for.”

Kinser opened the night by turning the 11th-fastest lap in time trials, with a season-high 42 cars signed in. That put him on the outside of the front row in the third eight-lap heat race, where he finished second to earn a spot in the dash. The third-generation driver would start the dash eighth and worked his way up to fifth, which lined him up on the inside of third row for the 25-lap main event.

On the opening lap of the A-Feature, Kinser got sideways, with a slow tip-over following. He took the car to the work area, where his crew changed the top wing and front note wing, and got him back out for the ensuing complete restart. The 2005 Knoxville Nationals winner lined up 21st on the restart and would make another trip to the work area on a lap-3 red flag, to have debris that got into the throttle removed.

Kinser would gain three positions when the third red flag of the night came out, still on the third lap. By way of World of Outlaws rules, a single file restart followed, since there was an accident on a double file restart. The native of Bloomington, Ind. worked his way up to 16th just past the halfway point of the race, before losing a couple of spots. He would wrap up the 25-lapper in the 18th spot.

Kinser returns to action aboard the Hendrickcars.com Maxim on Friday, May 4 at the famed Eldora Speedway in Ohio for the two-night Outlaw Thunder by Goodyear Weekend at the half-mile. The 2004 Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year Award winner is currently fifth in the World of Outlaws championship standings, just one marker behind his father Steve who is fourth, and 33 points out of the third position, on the strength of 10 Top-10 finishes in the first 13 races this season.

“I’m definitely looking forward to heading to Eldora,” said Kinser. “We have a busy next few weeks as we head east, and it all starts at Eldora. That’s a track that I’ve had some good runs at in the past. We have some good notes for Eldora that I think will work pretty well with the combination we have right now.”

Knoxville Raceway Results
Date Time
Trials Heat
Start Heat Finish Dash Start Dash Finish Feature Start Feature Finish Points
April 28 11th 2nd 2nd 8th 5th 5th 18th 5th

Kraig Kinser By the Numbers: Knoxville Raceway
0.5- Miles around Knoxville Raceway
2- Finishing position in the third heat race
5- Position in the World of Outlaws championship standings
7- Races on half-mile tracks this season for the World of Outlaws
8.6- Average finish in 13 main event starts this season
9- Appearances in the dash this season; Average starting position in feature events in 2012
10- Top-10 finishes this season
11- Position in time trials
13- Main events contested by the series through April 28
15.189- Lap in time trials
25- Career feature events starts with the World of Outlaws at Knoxville Raceway
1748- Points earned through April 28
25,550- Dollars earned through April 28

Up Next
May 4: Eldora Speedway, Rossburg, Ohio
May 5: Eldora Speedway, Rossburg, Ohio

Keep up with all the action
Follow Kraig Kinser on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kraigkinser11k and receive live updates from the track each and every race night.

Tune in
Listen live to each and every World of Outlaws event on DIRTVision.com with “The Voice of the Outlaws” Johnny Gibson on the call. Visit www.DIRTVision.com for live audio of each and every World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series event.