Outlaws Lernerville Speedway set to make its television debut with sprint car series

Thursday, May 31, 2001

By Chris Dolack, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Mark Kinser will lead the World of Outlaws series back to Lernerville Speedway tomorrow night.

The feature will be carried live by cable network TNN, marking the first time a Lernerville racing event was broadcast live by a national network.

Kinser, a seven-time winner at the half-mile clay oval in Sarver, has a 14-point advantage over Danny Lasoski even though he has won seven features this season and Lasoski has won only twice.

Lasoski, who is still trying to win his first race at Lernerville, drives a car owned by NASCAR Winston Cup star Tony Stewart, who raced in the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 Sunday.

"I really don't try to play the car owner role during the race," Stewart said. "I kind of play the crew guy role. If there's something that needs to be done, and everybody else is busy, then I'm the guy who does it -- whether it's scraping the mud off the car or grooving the tires, I view myself as just a crew guy. I don't try to run the show."

Based on experience, the driver who might dominate the show is Sammy Swindell, a 20-year Outlaws veteran who has raced sporadically with the series this season. Swindell, a three-time Outlaws champion, has won 14 times at Lernerville, including twice last season.

Swindell has been steadily working his car back into top form on the series. He posted a third-place finish in Granite City, Ill., May 12 before joining the Outlaws for an event in Concord, N.C., last weekend where he finished eighth.

"These are tracks we've run well on for years," Swindell said of the speedways in Pennsylvania where the Outlaws have competed since 1979. "We can go back to our records and see how we set up the Channellock car in the past and do the same thing if it worked for us. We really haven't changed the cars much at all this year."

That could be trouble for the rest of the field. Among the drivers expected to start the A-main feature are Jimmy Hawley and Rod George, the top two drivers in sprint-car points at Lernerville this season. The 2000 champion, David Scott, is fourth in points.

Gates will open at 3 p.m. with time trials set to begin at 7:15 p.m. The rain date is June 6.