SARVER, Pa. — Steve Kinser led all 40 laps to win the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series race at Lernerville Speedway July 15. It was Kinser’s first victory in the prestigious event in 14 years and earned him a $40,000 check.
Kinser started on the pole after winning the Crane Cams Dash and was challenged early by Craig Dollansky before Jason Meyers set his sights on the leader. Kinser held them as well as Donny Schatz at bay to pick up the 546th WoO triumph of his career.
“It feels good to win,” said Kinser. “We haven’t won all that many this year, so any win is good. I’ve been coming out here for a lot of years and this is a unique place. You always race against the best race drivers there are when you come out East. You can win a race tonight and struggle to make the race or miss it the next night, that’s how tough it is.”
Kinser led from the start, but lapped traffic came into play early on, with Meyers and Dollansky giving chase.
“I tried to stick on the bottom, but I was losing speed down there,” Kinser explained. “I never really ran that high. I figured I would run the middle and if it happens, it happens. On the restarts, it took me about three laps to get it lit up. It was a fine line to hit it right and get what drive you could out there. When you are leading, you don’t know if someone is dusting the top off where they can get a little more speed. You don’t want to change your line a whole lot. I was glad to see the checker come out.”
After a lap-26 caution, Meyers used a strong restart to stay with Kinser for a couple of laps. On the 27th lap, he used a slide job exiting the fourth turn to inch ahead of Kinser. Meyers slipped up the track just enough that Kinser was able to regain the lead.
The next lap, there was a red flag, giving the crews an opportunity to work on their machines, as it was an open red.
“We made a front shock change, but that is about it,” Kinser said. “I left the car pretty much the way it was. During the red, everyone had some time for the tires to cool down and they took off pretty good. We took off OK as well.”
Schatz battled Meyers for second on the restart, taking the position with five laps remaining, but it was too late to catch Kinser. It was Schatz’s 25th top-five finish of the season.
“It’s better than where we were,” said Schatz. “I thought we would be able to get the job done. We didn’t get going until too late. You make mistakes and I have been making a lot here lately and it’s time to clean up the act.”
Meyers finished third, while Joey Saldana and Kerry Madsen rounded out the top five.