MANDAN, N.D. — Steve Kinser led all 30 laps to win the inaugural Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series event at Dacotah Speedway Saturday night.
The 20-time series champion started on the pole and picked up his sixth win of the season and the 549th of his career. The $10,000 victory was the third race of the Gerdau Ameristeel Northern Tour, which encompasses the four races in the state of North Dakota this season for the World of Outlaws.
“Everything went pretty smooth tonight,” said Kinser. “We have been running pretty good the last two months and we are really consistent and in the top five most nights.”
The largest crowd in the history of Dacotah Speedway was on hand for the World of Outlaws debut at the three-eighths-mile oval. Fans began to arrive early in the afternoon, and the grandstands were full well before the cars took to the track for hot laps.
“It’s a great facility and a good race track,” said Kinser. “Next time, they’ll know how to work on it a little more and till it up and give us an even better race track.”
Kinser charged to a quick six-car- length lead aboard the Q Oil Maxim and extended that each of the first four laps before he got into lapped traffic. He then sliced his way through the slower machines, with Craig Dollansky keeping pace and gaining some ground in the process.
Kinser had a little trouble getting around a couple of lapped cars on the 10th lap, giving Dollansky an opportunity to close right up on him. Once he cleared traffic, Kinser was able to pull away again when the only caution of the night flew on the 12th lap for Joey Saldana who was running third and had a right-rear tire explode.
While tires were a concern earlier in the night, Kinser was not too worried about the Hoosiers he had bolted on for the 30-lap feature.
“The track laid a little bit of rubber in the heats, but they got it back to where you could race on it and had a pretty good race track,” he said. “Once we got to about halfway, we knew everyone would make it (on tires). We did work it pretty hard the last five or six laps.”
Kinser continued to lead as the laps wound down and with five laps to go, he again found himself in heavy lapped traffic, which allowed Dollansky to make up some ground on him. Even on the last lap, Kinser was negotiating traffic as he crossed the finish line about a second ahead of Dollansky.
“I would have liked to have been one spot better, but on the start my motor stumbled a little and we fell in line behind Steve (Kinser),” said Dollansky. “I thought we had a shot at him a few times in lapped traffic, but he was operating pretty good. The track rubbered up there as the race went on and it was pretty tough to pass from there on out.”
Jason Meyers finished third with point-leader Donny Schatz fourth and Jac Haudenschild fifth.