Shunned by TNN, ailing circuit finds home on TV

Thursday, May 16, 2002

By Chris Dolack, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Depending on the driver, the future of the World of Outlaws is solid or spinning in mud.

"We're in the dark," points leader Danny Lasoski said about the future of the series, which was racing in the Commonwealth Clash at Lernerville Speedway last night.

Mark Kinser, who has won six times at Lernerville, realizes the series is struggling, but he believes it will recover.

"Right now, we're definitely in a slump," he said. "We lost our TV contract, a lot of guys lost their big dollar sponsors -- and even their little dollar sponsors. It seems like in the past owners were scrambling to just to keep their drivers. Now, they're scrambling to keep their sponsors and they'll let anybody drive it. I think it'll turn around. We definitely have one of the most exciting sports in the world. We just need more TV coverage."

With many of the drivers echoing Kinser's remarks, Ted Johnson, who created the Outlaws in 1977, announced a deal with Speed Channel yesterday to carry six 1-hour double-feature shows this year and 26 next year. The Outlaws were broadcast by TNN through last season, but that network scaled back its racing coverage.

The new deal, most drivers believe, is key to the long-term future of the sprint car series. The Outlaws travel the country to take on local sprint drivers. But lately, rising costs have made it nearly impossible for many drivers without major sponsors to travel with the series.

The result has been smaller car counts, with only 13 drivers racing in all 18 features.

"The Outlaws have been the best thing for sprint car racing," said Apollo's Ed Lynch Jr., a former track champion with 52 career victories, three short of the record. "But the rich got richer. Sprint car racing has been around a lot longer than any of these organizations. I'm not putting any organizations down, but I'm just saying the organizations have been good but they've gotten to a level now where it's unreachable on the costs unless you do have a major sponsor. We'd better watch our step here and remember where our roots came from."

Lasoski, who drives a car owned by NASCAR star Tony Stewart, sees the importance of the new deal from a sponsorship angle.

"If this TV package is what they say it is, it can only make the series better," he said. "But right now we're in dire need of TV because a couple sponsors have left because of TV.

"If the World of Outlaws left, you would see a new a group somewhere -- quick. Someone would jump on it."

Johnson was much more upbeat about the future of the series, even if some of its star drivers are aging.

"The main thing is we signed our new television package," he said. "We made a choice this year to get our own television deal.

"Some of the older guys, like Steve [Kinser], are still racing real good. Steve's second in points. He's still real racy."

Johnson said the Gumout Series, the Outlaws' developmental division, is providing a pool of talented young drivers to eventually replace the older drivers.

"We've got a lot of good young kids coming in our Gumout Series," Johnson said. "Out with us now is Daryn Pittman; he won the Gumout Series championship last year. We've got a bunch of other young kids coming, too. In the race at Talladega, we had two 16-year-olds, a 17-year-old, two 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old. All of them are good racers and all of them made the A-feature. In fact, Steve was racing at one place and one of the young kids took the line away from him, so the kids are racing real hard. They're learning how to race."

As the series has expanded to included races at NASCAR tracks during Winston Cup weekends, Johnson said there still is room for the Lernervilles of the world.

"Lernerville is one of our main tracks," he said. "We enjoy coming here and always will come here as long as they want us. This is one of our prime tracks. We won't forsake our base tracks."

With Sammy Swindell cutting back his schedule last season, Steve Kinser, who will turn 47 in June, is the elder statesman of the series. But he isn't ready to retire just yet.

"As long as we're competitive we'll probably run for a while," he said.

Kinser believes the series will strengthen again, too.

"We've been filling every place up where we've been attendance-wise," he said. "It's pretty strong that way. We have 18 to 20 good cars with us all the time. It's a little tough sometimes, because we have so many good cars it makes it a little bit hard for some of the guys to come and travel, because it makes it tougher for them to make a race, to be honest. That's how many good race cars there are right now."