BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — August 19, 2013— The 2013 edition of the Gerdau Ameristeel Northern Tour in North Dakota and Minnesota was pretty good to Kraig Kinser. In four starts, he finished sixth or better three times and had an average finish of seventh. The third-generation driver wrapped up the four race mini-series on Sunday, Aug. 18 at Nodak Speedway in Minot, N.D., with a sixth-place showing in the Mesilla Valley Transportation/Casey’s General Store/King Racing Products Maxim.
Kinser took the green flag for the 35-lap event at Nodak Speedway in the 14th spot and after a yellow and then red flag led to a pair of complete restarts, he found himself in 10th. Kinser would run just outside of the top-10 for the first 15 laps of the feature. He used a strong restart on the 16th circuit to power his way from 11th to eighth. Kinser worked his way into the top-five on lap-23 and ran in that position for the next five laps, before losing one spot to finish sixth.
The native of Bloomington, Ind., opened the night 12th in trials of the 32 drivers signed in, which put him on the outside of the front row for the four heat race. He had a spirited battled with his father Steve for the second position and a spot in the dash, coming up just short, finishing third to earn a spot in the A-Feature.
“The car really came on in the middle of the feature,” said Kinser. “We’ve always run pretty well at Minot (Nodak Speedway). That track seems to fit my driving style and we have a good baseline set-up for there. A couple of the restarts definitely helped us and we were able to gain quite a few spots.”
At River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, N.D., Kinser finished 11th on Friday, Aug. 16, in the third round of the Northern Tour. After starting 12th, he lost a couple of spots early in the race. He battled Casey Mack for several laps to take the 13th spot on the eighth circuit. Kinser then set his sights on Kerry Madsen, who ran 12th. He would take that position on the 14th go-around. Just two laps later, he would get by Chad Kemenah for 11th and would run in that spot for a number of laps before getting by Bill Rose to move into the top-10. Paul McMahan slipped by Kinser in the late going, with the latter ending up 11th.
“To run 40 laps non-stop was a little surprising, with how tight the quarters are at River Cities (Speedway),” noted Kinser. “That goes to show you the caliber of drivers on the tour and the guys we race against. It might have helped to maybe have had a caution or two, but it didn’t work out that way and we just kind of maintained throughout the race.”
Kinser began the night at River Cities Speedway by recording the sixth-quickest lap in time trials of the 43 drivers that took a time. Kinser started third in the second heat race and finished in that same spot to punch his ticket into the 40-lap main event.
At Junction Motor Speedway in McCool Junction, Neb., on Tuesday, Aug. 13, Kinser ran eighth for most of the race, before engine problems with just six laps remaining relegated him to an 18th-place finish. He started the night by timing in 11th-fastest, which put him on the pole of the second eight-lap heat race. He finished second in the heat to earn a spot in the dash, where he came home ninth. Kinser lined up on the inside of the fifth row for the 30-lap A-Feature and moved up to eighth at the drop of the green flag and ran there until the engine woes forced him to the pit area.
Kinser is back in action this coming weekend at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for the running of the annual Oil City Cup. He is currently 13th in the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series championship standings on the strength of 24 top-10 finishes.
“It will be nice this week to have a couple of days to regroup, because once we get to Skagit (Speedway) at the end of the month, we’ll be racing a bunch,” said Kinser. “We always enjoy this time of the year and get to go up north and see a lot of fans we only get to see once a year.”
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.
Junction Motor Speedway, River Cities Speedway & Nodak Speedway Results
| Date | Time Trials |
Heat Start |
Heat Finish | Dash Start | Dash Finish | Feature Start | Feature Finish | Points |
| Aug. 13 | 11th | 1st | 2nd | 9th | 9th | 9th | 18th | 13th |
| Aug. 16 | 6th | 3rd | 3rd | N/A | N/A | 12th | 11th | 13th |
| Aug. 18 | 12th | 2nd | 3rd | N/A | N/A | 14th | 6th | 13th |
Keep up with all the action
For the latest news on Kraig Kinser, visit http://www.kraigkinser.com, and follow Kraig on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kraigkinser11k and receive live updates from the track each and every race night.
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