data-animation-override>
“The undisputed king of sprint-car racing, Steve Kinser, came, saw, and conquered on the night of Saturday, December 5, at WXC Speedway, Western Springs. ”
Here for a week-long tour behind the wheel of the #11 Daltons Racing machine, Kinser was smooth and fast on his way to winning both the pole shoot-out and the final feature race of the Salute to the King tour.
For those who haven’t seen it before, the pole shuffle sets the top 10 qualifiers against each other in a series of two-lap sprints, starting with numbers 10 and nine in reverse order; winner stays on, loser parks up, until you get a pole-position winner. The sizeable crowd was on its feet as Kinser bested Jonathan Allard in the #0 Narellan Pools entry, to grab the top spot for what is touted as his final-ever race on New Zealand soil.
The feature race was fairly incident-free, despite the track throwing up a few challenges, with a big cushion building in Pine Tree bend. Kinser and Allard cleared out from the front row, while the Kiwis battled over third place. Young Wellingtonian Jamie Larsen, in the #82 Macbilt Engineering car, earned a just reward for a solid series, and was understandably happy to stand on the podium with Kinser and Allard — who came home in second — to secure the overall series title.
Jamie McDonald had a solid three-round series, and took second place overall in the Hitachi Tools New Zealand entry.
Attention now switches to International Midget Series Racing, which will kick off on Boxing Day night, and is traditionally the biggest speedway night of the year at WXC Speedway, Western Springs. You can find more information, and tickets, at springsspeedway.com.
