Kraig Kinser Rallies To Sixth-Place Finish During WoO Season Finale At World Finals

Story By: SHAWN MILLER / STEVE KINSER RACING – CONCORD, NC – A charge from 17th to sixth on Saturday capped the 2019 season for Kraig Kinser.

“Having a good run at the end of the year is definitely nice,” he said. “It makes the winter go a little bit easier. At the same time we want to get better for next year so it won’t keep us from working hard to find more speed.”

Kinser kicked off the Can-Am World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte last Thursday when he qualified sixth quickest in his World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series group for Friday’s show and 12th quickest in his group for Saturday’s program.

“I feel like we put ourselves in position to make both races in a tough field,” he said. “We made it in the dash one night so we qualified good for Friday.”

Kinser finished second in a heat race on Friday to advance into a dash. Unfortunately, he pulled the highest number and finished where he started – sixth. That lined him up 11th for the main event.

“It was the most we struggled all weekend,” he said after placing 15th. “We were good enough to hold our own, but not good enough to go forward. Every restart was a struggle to get going again. There was a good bunch of cars. There’s some setup stuff and some choices I made as a driver that didn’t play out like we wanted.”

Saturday ended on a better note for Kinser, who maneuvered from fourth to third place in a heat race to lock into the A Main. He then charged from 17th to sixth in the feature.

“We rebounded even though we were in a tougher position to start the main event,” he said. “We had a good setup and stuff went our way. The car was good enough to roll the way I needed to make the turns. It worked for the lines I was running. We’ve been pretty good at Charlotte lately so it was on par with how I was hoping to be.

“I stayed mostly at the middle to the bottom. I went to the top a couple of times in turns one and two. I felt good enough to keep up. If they were running the bottom I’d float out to the middle or the top. Keeping air on my wings and trying to help the car have clean air was important and we were able to move around as we needed.”

It marked Kinser’s 28th top 10 of the season.