Lima, OH – Steve Kinser is one of just two drivers competing full-time with the World of Outlaws this season that raced against Brad Doty. He competed against the Ohio native numerous times in the early days of the World of Outlaws, and during that span he struck up a great friendship with the fellow driver.
One of the most special wins of Kinser’s career came in 1989 when he won the inaugural Brad Doty Classic and the 20-time World of Outlaws champion was able to pick up another extra special win on Wednesday night, claiming the 21st Annual Ohio Logistics Brad Doty Classic at Limaland Motorsports Park in Ohio, an event that the Hall of Famer and Ohio native helped promote again this season.
Kinser took the lead from Jason Meyers on the 35th lap and would lead the remainder of the 40-lap contest to score his second win of the 2009 campaign and the fourth of his career at the pristine Limaland Motorsports Park, which is owned and operated by the University of Northwestern Ohio.
“Brad was a good friend and we traveled together a lot,” said Kinser. “We had team cars during the Coors Light days. I spent a lot of time with his family growing up and my family. It’s a very special race and I’m glad to win it.”
Kinser started sixth and got around Jason Sides and Dale Blaney on the opening lap to move into fourth. He then battled Daryn Pittman for the next eight laps before taking the third spot on the 10th circuit. He then patiently worked on Jason Meyers who was running second for a number of laps, before battling Sam Hafertepe Jr. when Meyers took the lead from him. After Hafertepe got into the wall and upside on the 29th lap while running second, Kinser moved into the runner-up spot and set his sights on Meyers.
On a lap-29 restart, Kinser kept pace with Meyers and looked coming off the fourth turn on the next lap for the lead. He was all over Meyers for the next couple of laps and went low off turn four on the 35th lap and slid up in front of Meyers to take the lead. He would pace the field for the rest of the way to earn the 552nd A-Feature win of his career with the World of Outlaws aboard the Quaker State Maxim.
“I was just hanging around and getting a little bit better and a little bit better,” explained the winner. “On that last restart, I started running the car just a little different and was picking the throttle up a little earlier and it would give me more speed coming off. It started working a little bit and I saw myself picking up. The car is getting better than it has been, so we’ll see what happens.”
Kinser nearly won the Brad Doty Classic in 2008, as he took the white flag as the leader, only to have Meyers get by him in turn four on the final lap to nip him at the line. That race was fresh on his mind on Wednesday night.
“No, you never like losing one on the last lap, no matter what it is,” he deadpanned, when asked if the win this year made up for last year’s near miss.
In each of his last seven starts at Limaland Motorsports Park, Kinser has finished first or second. He won for the first time at the track in 1978 and followed that up in 1979 with two more wins. He is the only driver that has won more than once with the World of Outlaws at the ¼-mile bullring and now has four triumphs there.
“We have run good here every time we have come me,” noted Kinser. “Karl (Kinser) and me won races here in the late 70′s and I’m giving up my age there, but everyone knows how old I am anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I’ve always liked this place and it’s a completely different race track now. I’ve won a lot of races here.”
Jason Meyers started on the pole and battled Sam Hafertepe Jr. tooth and nail for the first 29 laps of the race. The pair traded the lead officially three times, but unofficially they swapped it nearly a dozen times. Some laps they traded the lead two and three times before getting to the start finish line. Meyers wound up leading a total of 15 laps on the night as he sought his second consecutive win in the Brad Doty Classic in the GLR Investments KPC.
“What a great race,” said Meyers. “Congratulations to Steve (Kinser) and Scott (Gerkin) and everyone on that team. They did a great job tonight and beat us. He was a little bit better through the middle than we were and we were a little too loose. This entire team is doing a heck of a job and we have been getting going better here lately. We just have a little more tuning to do. It was a great race tonight and thanks to everyone for coming out here.”
Meyers took the lead from Hafertepe for the first time on the 18th lap, with Hafertepe taking the top spot back on the next go-around. Meyers would again take the lead on the 22nd lap on a restart, using the high side of turn two to his advantage. Late in the race Meyers battled his car a bit in lapped traffic as the laps wound down, after Kinser got around him with six laps to go.
“I wasn’t getting through the middle to be able to turn and go through him,” shared the California native. “When I got to him at the top, you couldn’t really see where the cushion was and it got tough. I was trying to kind of pace myself, but run hard enough to where hopefully no one would challenge me for it. Like I said, Steve got through the middle great and they did a great job. Jason (Sides) poked under me a couple of times and that was good clean racing and hopefully a good show for the fans.”
Jason Sides picked up the best finish of his career at Limaland Motorsports Park coming home third on Wednesday night in the Wetherington Tractor Service Maxim. The native of Bartlett, Tennessee started fifth and fell back to eighth on the opening lap before steadily working his way back to the front.
“It’s always good to get a strong Top-Five,” said Sides. “This is one of those places that we always enjoy racing at. This place had a top and a bottom and it was good all night.”
Late in the race when Sides closed in on Meyers and challenged him the final five laps of the race for the runner-up spot, looking under him a couple of times for the position. For Sides it was his 27th Top-10 finish of the season and it helped him move back ahead of Danny Lasoski for the fifth spot in the series championship standings.
“We could run the top or the middle,” he said after the race. “I tried the top a little bit and then mainly ran the middle and bottom. It was pretty good.”
Kraig Kinser also earned the best finish of his World of Outlaws career at Limaland coming home fourth in the Bass Pro Shops Maxim.
Jac Haudenschild put on a show coming all the way from the 23rd starting spot to finish fifth in the Owens Corning Fiberglass Maxim to earn the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger Award.
Daryn Pittman was sixth in the Hunter Truck Sales JEI. Craig Dollansky was seventh aboard the DirecTV Maxim. Donny Schatz came from the 18th starting spot to finish eighth in the Armor All J&J. He extended his lead in the series championship standings to 22 over Joey Saldana who wound up 14th after spinning while running ninth. Dale Blaney, who won earlier this season with the World of Outlaws, was ninth in Ti-22 Performance Maxim. Lucas Wolfe rounded out the Top-10 in the Allebach Racing Maxim.
The World of Outlaws return to action on Friday, July 17 at Eldora Speedway with the Knight Before the Kings Royal, followed by the $50,000 to-win Kings Royal on Saturday, July 18.
Heat 1 (10 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 11-Steve Kinser 2) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. 3) 9-Joey Saldana 4) 7C-Neil Shepherd 5) 1X-Randy Hannagan 6) O-Brandon Wimmer 7) 11B-Brock Mayes 8) 22-Brian Ellenberger 9) 4B-Tom Busch 10) 22D-Josh Davis 11) 6X-Zach Ames
Heat 2 (10 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 14-Jason Meyers 2) 2-Dale Blaney 3) R19-Jac Haudenschild 4) 1AU-Garry Brazier 5) 83-Tim Kaeding 6) 15-Donny Schatz 7) 3C-Cale Conley 8) 2H-Tim Hunter 9) 7AU-Roddy Bellbowen 10) 63-Chad Kemenah 11) 22X-Cold Duncan
Heat 3 (10 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 17-Daryn Pittman 2) 84-Jimmy Stinson 3) 6-Danny Lasoski 4) 5-Byron Reed 5) V92-Mathew Reed 6) 19-Craig Dollansky 7) 40-Mark Imler 8) 10-Sammy Swindell 9) 97-Dean Jacobs 10) 4-Danny Smith
Heat 4 (10 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 7S-Jason Sides 2) 5W-Lucas Wolfe 3) 83X-Tim Shaffer 4) 20-Kraig Kinser 5) 11M-Brandon Martin 6) 24H-Chad Blonde 7) 6S-JR Stewart 8) W20-Greg Wilson 9) 43G-Chad Grear 10) 25-Lee Jacobs
Crane Cams Dash (8 laps, finishing order determined first 10 starting positions of A-feature)
1) 14-Jason Meyers 2) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. 3) 17-Daryn Pittman 4) 2-Dale Blaney 5) 7S-Jason Sides 6) 11-Steve Kinser 7) 20-Kraig Kinser 8) 9-Joey Saldana 9) 84-Jimmy Stinson 10) 5W-Lucas Wolfe
C-main (10 laps, top 2 finishers transferred to B-main)
1) 22-Brian Ellenberger 2) 3C-Cale Conley 3) 22D-Josh Davis [$125] 4) 7AU-Roddy Bellbowen [$125] 5) 6S-JR Stewart [$125] 6) 40-Mark Imler [$100] 7) 43G-Chad Grear [$100] 8) 63-Chad Kemenah [$100] 9) 97-Dean Jacobs [$100] 10) 6X-Zach Ames [$100]
B-main (12 laps, top 4 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 19-Craig Dollansky 2) 15-Donny Schatz 3) 11B-Brock Mayes 4) 4-Danny Smith 5) 10-Sammy Swindell [$200] 6) 22-Brian Ellenberger [$180] 7) 3C-Cale Conley [$175] 8) 4B-Tom Busch [$160] 9) 24H-Chad Blonde [$150] 10) 25-Lee Jacobs [$150] 11) 2H-Tim Hunter [$150] 12) O-Brandon Wimmer [$150] 13) 22X-Cold Duncan [$150] 14) W20-Greg Wilson [$150]
A-main (40 laps) – Starting Position [#]
1) 11-Steve Kinser[6] [$10,000] 2) 14-Jason Meyers[1] [$5,500] 3) 7S-Jason Sides[5] [$3,200] 4) 20-Kraig Kinser[7] [$2,800] 5) R19-Jac Haudenschild[23] [$2,500] 6) 17-Daryn Pittman[3] [$2,300] 7) 19-Craig Dollansky[11] [$2,200] 8) 15-Donny Schatz[18] [$2,100] 9) 2-Dale Blaney[4] [$2,050] 10) 5W-Lucas Wolfe[10] [$2,000] 11) 83X-Tim Shaffer[13] [$1,500] 12) 11B-Brock Mayes[17] [$1,200] 13) 4-Danny Smith[12] [$1,100] 14) 9-Joey Saldana[8] [$1,050] 15) 6-Danny Lasoski[22] [$1,000] 16) 1X-Randy Hannagan[19] [$900] 17) 84-Jimmy Stinson[9] [$800] 18) 5-Byron Reed[20] [$800] 19) V92-Mathew Reed[24] [$800] 20) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr.[2] [$800] 21) 83-Tim Kaeding[14] [$800] 22) 11M-Brandon Martin[21] [$800] 23) 1AU-Garry Brazier[16] [$800] 24) 7C-Neil Shepherd[15] [$800]
Lap Leaders: Sam Hafertepe Jr. 1-17, 19-21; Jason Meyers 18, 22-34; Steve Kinser 35-40
SuperClean Start of the Night Award: Jac Haudenschild
Penske Power Position Award: Jason Sides
KSE Hard Charger Award: Jac Haudenschild
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