Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Taylor sent packing after crashing out of another race

Wednesday, June 30, 2004 | 9:51 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Indy Racing League rookie Mark Taylor will be replaced as driver of Panther Racing's second car for the remainder of the season, the team announced Tuesday.

Taylor, 26, was involved in a crash during Saturday night's IRL IndyCar Series race at Richmond International Raceway that also collected teammate Tomas Scheckter. It was the fifth time in six races this season that Taylor had crashed out of a race.

Panther Racing said a replacement for Taylor would be announced "at a later time." The team doesn't have much time as the series races this Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

"Mark Taylor has done everything we have asked him to do over the past 18 months he has been part of the Panther Racing family," team co-owner John Barnes said. "However, due to the many pressures of professional auto racing, it is in everyone's best interest that we look in different directions."

Taylor joined Panther Racing in 2003 and won the Menards Infiniti Pro Series championship with a record-setting seven race victories. He moved up to the IndyCar Series this season as a teammate to Scheckter and was 19th in points following his 18th-place finish Saturday night. Taylor's best finish this season was a 12th-place showing at Phoenix International Raceway in March.

Vasser is coming off a pair of top-10 finishes with PKV Racing, the team he co-owns, and is heading to a circuit where he holds the track qualifying record.

"PKV Racing has been making some significant gains as far as performance goes, and I'm optimistic because the team is continually getting better," Vasser said. "We're looking forward to improving on the results we've had so far this season in Cleveland."

Vasser twice has sat on the pole at Cleveland (1996 and 1998) and established a track qualifying mark of 56.417 seconds (134.385 mph) in 1998. Although he has six top-10 finishes in 11 races on the airport tarmac, Vasser still is searching for his first victory at Cleveland; his best finish there was third in 1995.

Junqueira has managed to lead the Champ Car standings without winning a race. The Brazilian has finished second in three of the first four races this season and holds a 6-point lead over Las Vegan Patrick Carpentier.

Kinser raced to a 2.4-second victory over Dollansky, but was disqualified because his No. 83 Maxim weighed in at less than the series' 1,375-pound minimum.

It was the second time in four days that an Outlaws race winner had been disqualified for violating the series' weight rule. Sammy Swindell, who was disqualified for the same violation last week at Dodge City (Kansas) Raceway Park, lost fifth place Saturday night when his car again was found to be under the weight minimum.

Steve Kinser, who had engine trouble in the main event and finished 20th, holds an 86-point lead over Danny Lasoski in the battle for the WoO championship.