Kinser Can’t Wait for Outlaws’ Return

The World of Outlaws, those marauding sprint car drivers best known for 25-square-foot wings that hover above their cars, return to Perris Auto Speedway next week and no one can be more pleased about it than Mark Kinser.

Of six races at the Inland Empire’s half-mile dirt oval in the last two seasons, Kinser has won every one.

“We’re ready to make it seven,” said Karl Kinser, Mark’s father and the premier owner/mechanic in the game. “We’ve won a lot of races at a lot of different tracks, but I don’t recall winning six in a row before. The law of averages says we’ll lose one some day, but not this year.”

In the 20 years since promoter Ted Johnson took a barnstorming gang of independent sprint car gypsies and molded it into an organization with corporate sponsorship, Karl Kinser has won 16 owner championships, 14 with his nephew, Steve Kinser, and two with his son, Mark.

The Outlaws may be the hardest working group of racers in the world. Formula One has 17 races, CART has 19, the IRL 11 and NASCAR’s Winston Cup has 32, but the sprint car organization has a 75-date schedule running from February to November.

This year’s season will start next Friday night at Kings Speedway in Hanford and Saturday night at Perris.

Although Mark Kinser won 25 races last year to 19 for champion Sammy Swindell, Kinser lost in his bid for the championship because he elected to drive in the NASCAR Craftsman truck series and missed a few Outlaw events.

“I think Mark will be doing more with us this year, although you never know, if he gets a better opportunity he may take it,” the elder Kinser said.

That is what happened to Steve Kinser after the “King of the Outlaws” had won 14 titles. When an opportunity arose to drive a Winston Cup car three years ago, Steve took it. However, when it didn’t work out and he returned to the Outlaws, his uncle had given the ride in his car to Mark.

Steve decided to run his own team, and the results have not been what he expected. Last season he won only five races, the worst year in his career.

“Mediocre, mediocre,” Steve said of last year. “We have a top-five car that didn’t win enough races. We are going at ’98 working on all ends of this car. Last year Scott [crew chief Scott Gerken] and I were chasing setup from the start. We’re not doing that this year.

“Attitude is very important in sprint car racing, and we are approaching this year hoping to enjoy ourselves and have fun. Of course, it’s a lot more fun when you’re out in front. I’m anxious to get back to Perris. I’ve never run well there, and I want to change that. There aren’t many places I haven’t won.”

He has won 418 Outlaw main events.

SUPERCROSS

It isn’t exactly 1996 again, but Jeremy McGrath is beginning to show the dominance in stadium motocross that enabled him to win four straight Supercross championships.

In 1996 he won 14 of 15 events as a Honda factory rider. So far this year, now riding a Yamaha, he has finished third in the Coliseum, second in Houston, second in Tempe, Ariz., and first last week in Seattle before a record Kingdome crowd of 56,018. That has him solidly in first place as the series heads for San Diego and Qualcomm Stadium on Saturday night.

“San Diego is probably the closest the series comes to my home [in Canyon Lake], so I consider this my hometown race,” he said. “It’s one I really want to win.”

San Diego was not on the circuit last year when McGrath suffered the worst year of his career, winning only two of 15 events while riding a Suzuki.

However, he has never lost at San Diego, winning 250cc main events from 1993 through 1996 and winning 125cc support races in 1991 and 1992.

French teenager Sebastien Tortelli, a surprise winner at the Coliseum, is expected to return to action Saturday night after missing the last two events because he injured his knee in practice.

NASCAR

The Ford Taurus, which has replaced the Thunderbird as the factory model in Winston Cup racing, won’t be the only change NASCAR will unveil when the 1998 season opens this weekend at Daytona International Speedway.

On Sunday, what was once known as the Busch Clash is now the Bud Shootout with a slightly different format. Instead of drawing one additional driver from a pool of top second-day qualifiers from 1997, those drivers will have a 25-lap qualifying race, the winner reaching the shootout field. There also will be a mandatory green-flag pit stop to change right-side tires between laps 10-12.

Seventeen drivers, headed by defending Daytona 500 champion Jeff Gordon, are guaranteed places in the Bud Shootout.

Also dramatically changing is the Winston Million, which Gordon won last year by winning three of four selected superspeedway races. It is being replaced by a No Bull 5 promotion, which will offer a $1-million bonus at each of five races.

The top five finishers in each race become eligible to win the bonus if they can win the next No Bull 5 race. For next week’s Daytona, eligible drivers are Terry Labonte, Bobby Labonte, John Andretti, Ken Schrader and Ernie Irvan. They were the top five in the Winston 500 last October at Talladega, Ala.

The No Bull 5 events, in addition to the Daytona and Talladega races, are the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and the Southern 500 at Darlington.

CROSSING OVER

Don Prudhomme could be excused for being excited when his two drivers, Larry Dixon Jr. in a top fuel dragster and Ron Capps in a Chevy Camaro funny car, won Winternationals nitro races last Sunday at Pomona, but he’s a little behind in his racing history.

“I feel like Roger Penske. In Indy car racing, you always see the two Marlboro cars cross the finish line together,” he said.

That hasn’t happened since 1994 when Paul Tracy and Al Unser Jr. finished one-two at Nazareth, Pa.

Tom Hammonds is keeping busy playing basketball with the Minnesota Timberwolves, but the 6-foot-9 power forward is serious about his drag racing career. Hammonds, who will drive a Camaro pro stock car in NHRA competition when the basketball season is over, is so serious that he has a full-size Christmas tree--an electronic ladder of lights used to start drag races--in his living room. “When I’m not playing, I’m in the living room practicing with the tree,” he said while watching last week’s Winternationals.

Pro golfer Jay Don Blake skipped the AT&T; tournament at Pebble Beach last week to drive his ’57 Chevy super comp car in the Winternationals. He made it to the fifth round before losing. “It’s funny to walk down the fairway during a tournament and have fans ask me when I’m going to be racing next. Now, at the drag races they’re asking when my next golf tournament is going to be.”

SPORTS CARS

Gianpiero Moretti, whose reputation among sports car fanatics was more for his pit row pasta parties than his driving prowess, finally made it to the winner’s circle in the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Raceway. The popular Italian driver had been coming to the race since 1970 when he arrived with a Ferrari and two mechanics. Last weekend, with a crew of 25 and an 18-wheel truck loaded with spare parts, he and three companions--including Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk--drove another Ferrari to victory in the 24-hour race.

“With all the money I have spent racing at Daytona, I could have bought 1,000 Rolexes easily,” an elated Moretti said. Also on the winning team were Mauro Baldi and Didier Theys, but it was Moretti who drove the final stint and took the checkered flag. Luyendyk, who finished second in the 1986 Rolex 24 with A.J. Foyt and Danny Sullivan, was driving when the Ferrari took the lead.

Bill Auberlen of Redondo Beach helped the defending GT-3 champion BMW M3 repeat as class champions. Driving with Auberlen were Boris Said III of Carlsbad, Peter Cunningham of West Bend, Wis., and Marc Duezendi of Belgium.

LAST LAPS

The International Road Racing Assn.’s stock car season will open Sunday with a 100-mile race at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond. . . . Buttonwillow Raceway Park will open its road course with races Saturday and Sunday.