Kinser carries on family tradition with title

Thursday, Nov. 4, 1999 | 10:41 a.m.

Perhaps it was the fact that he had just endured a grueling 103-race schedule, but Mark Kinser sure didn't look like a racer on the verge of celebrating a championship.

Kinser clinched his second Pennzoil World of Outlaws championship when he qualified his No. 5M Mopar-sponsored winged sprint car for Wednesday night's season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's 1/2-mile dirt oval.

But you never would have known it from his demeanor as he relaxed in the lounge of his race hauler prior to the final race of the season.

"For one reason or the other, it has definitely been one of the most miserable years of my life," an obviously exhausted Kinser said.

"I've got a 2-year-old son who's learning how to walk, and trying to do all this (racing) and and living out of a motor home. It really hasn't been a bad year ... I guess it's just all the realities of being a family on the road."

Living out of a motor home for 10 months out of the year is not exactly foreign to the 35-year-old Oolitic, Ind., resident. His father and car owner, Karl Kinser, has headed up 15 Outlaws championship efforts and his cousin, Steve Kinser, is a 15-time series champion.

So, after considering his comments, Mark Kinser reflected on his title and carrying on the family tradition in the sport.

"The championship does mean a lot -- it actually might even mean my future as far as being involved with Mopar," Kinser said.

After running Chevrolet engines for the first 15 years of his Outlaws career, Kinser switched to Mopar power late last season. To win a championship in his first full season with Mopar certainly is satisfying, Kinser said.

"It's a big step in the right direction for Kinser Racing, and giving (Mopar) a championship for the first time probably holds a lot of water," Kinser, who also won the championship in 1996, said.

Kinser said the decision to switch to the new powerplant wasn't all that difficult after paying a visit two years ago to Mopar's headquarters in Center Line, Mich.

"We took our best Chevy (engine) and they basically just dragged one of their motors off the floor and we dyno tested them, one-on-one," Kinser recalled. "They beat us in every aspect on the dyno, which sent us home with our tails between our legs and very impressed.

"That was two years ago. We tried to nudge our way in there and we finally got in (late) last year."

Kinser's success this season with Mopar -- he finished with a series-leading 19 "A" feature wins and 30 fast-time awards -- was the result, Kinser said, of putting together the right parts and the right people.

"Mopar's biggest problem (in the past) was they either had a good driver and no mechanic, or a (good) mechanic and no driver," he said. "They always had the substance to win, but they didn't have the right combination.

"We just stuck together and really came together as a team. It was a total team effort."

For the second time in his 15-year career, Kinser found the right combination. He also finally found a reason to smile when it dawned on him that he was two hours away from starting a well-deserved -- albeit brief -- vacation.

"You run a hundred races a year -- it's a long year -- and at the end of the year if you're the one wearing the big crown, it's certainly a nice feeling," Kinser said.

NOTES: Donny Schatz took the lead from pole-sitter Sammy Swindell on the first lap and led wire-to-wire in winning Wednesday night's "A" feature at LVMS. Schatz claimed the $18,000 first-place check by holding off Johnny Herrera and Jeff Shepard for his third "A" feature victory of the season. ... Mark Kinser, the 1999 Pennzoil World of Outlaws champion, dropped out midway through the 30-lap finale and finished 21st among the 26 starters.