Steve Kinser at Bloomington, IN J.D. Byrider with General Manager, Bob Slone on August 4, 2011.
Racing legend Steve Kinser hasn’t won a winged sprint car championship since 2005, but he’s enjoying work as much as ever, partly because he feels better.
Due to an accident in a May 30 crash in Lake Odessa, MI that required next-day surgery, Kinser has been driving with a titanium plate and several screws, but he hasn’t been slowed.
The next stop on his 69-race schedule is Friday night at Bloomington Speedway, a quarter-mile dirt track, which will host its first Outlaws race since 1999.
With his Bloomington-based crew intact, Kinser is third in the standings with five wins. He is 86 points out of the lead, a fair margin but not insurmountable with 24 races left.
At 57, Kinser is no longer stressing over securing sponsors. He is now simply responsible for representing the sponsors and winning races and employs a staff to handle everything else.
“When I started my race team in 1994, I said I was never going to drive for nobody else,” Kinser said this week. “But with (sponsors cutting back) I was sort of on the low end, and I didn’t have the budget to hire the right people to take care of the sponsors the way they needed to be taken care of.
Other than a new primary sponsor — Bass Pro Shops — not much else has changed for Kinser. Still performing as his crew chief is Scott Gerkin, a Mitchell, Ind., native. Kinser’s other staff members include Gary DuBois, from Columbus, Ind., Kinser’s brother, Randy, and Mikey Kuemper assisting.
“Even though it’s owned by Tony Stewart and he’s the boss, he gives me the leeway to make all the mistakes,” Kinser said. “I don’t know if he’d do that for just anybody.”
He enjoys the continuity he created and Stewart left alone.
To that, Stewart said he’s the beneficiary.
“When we first talked about having Steve come drive (for us), I just couldn’t believe it was a possibility,” he said. “As a youngster, my dad and I went to the Bloomington Speedway to watch Steve give clinics when the World of Outlaws came to town. I have always looked up to him.
“He’s what everybody thinks of when they think of sprint car racing.”
Kinser has earned that reputation not only through the championships — no other driver has more than four titles — but through his resiliency.
The crash at Michigan’s I-96 Speedway that broke his arm occurred on a Monday, and he drove home in pain. Surgery followed the next day. He was back in the car three days later — flipping his car, no less — and won the next night.
Being competitive is what keeps him going.
“I went through a few months of broken bones, but other than that I’m probably healthier than I’ve been for a while,” he said.
“I’m overweight, and that’s something I should have taken care of last winter or the winter before that . . . but we’re still competitive.
