SPRINTS: Indy Racer Kite to compete at Concord

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

April 20, 2001

CONCORD, N.C. - Three-time Indianapolis 500 starter Jimmy Kite will strap himself into the red and silver #45 Environmental Protection Associates 410-winged sprint car owned by Tommy

Gainey, this Saturday here at Concord Motorsports Park for the 40-lap United Sprint Car Series (USCS) feature. The Stockbridge, Georgia resident will lap the Clincher chassis, Gaerte engine combination around the half-mile, paved oval for the first time during pre-event testing on Friday. The 1998 "Fastest Rookie Qualifier" at the Indianapolis 500 is making his first 2001 appearance in a winged-sprint car this weekend.

Kite is no stranger to winged-sprint cars or to Concord. The 25-year old Indy Racing driver made his start racing quarter-midget race cars at the age of eight and worked his way up through mini-sprints, USAC midgets, sprint cars and Silver Bullet cars to the Indy Racing League. His experience in winged-sprint cars encompasses races on the American Winged Outlaw (AWOL) circuit including a win at the incredibly fast Lanier Raceway (Lanier) in Braselton, Georgia, a track similar to Concord Motorsports Park. He took his first laps of Concord in a Busch Grand National test in 1999.

"I am just glad to be back in one," enthused Kite about his return to winged-sprint car racing. "It is the one thing that I have missed while racing in the Indy Racing Northern Light Series. I'd watch these race every weekend on TNN and I really wanted to get back in one. I think I am as excited about this as I am about running Indy next month!"

Kite currently has 22 Indy Racing starts under his belt with a career high finish of sixth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) and a career high start of fourth at Phoenix International Raceway (PIR). In 2000, Kite led 16-laps in the Indy Racing Northern Light Series event at Kentucky Speedway battling through the field following a poorly timed pit stop making up one lap on the field and fighting his way back to the front until a late race blown engine took him out while leading. In his Indy Racing career he has won $1,232,000.

Kite's young career reads like a movie script with five national championships, numerous victories and "Rookie of the Year" honors in the 1997 USAC Silver Crown (now Silver Bullet) series. He shocked the racing world by driving from the back of the field to beat veteran Chuck Gurney on the final turn of the 1997 Silver Crown show at PIR's prestigious Copper World Classic. Kite also holds the unofficial Featherlite Modified track record at Lanier set last year.

"Things happen in a hurry at a track like this," offered Kite about the racing at Concord. "It is kinda like an Indy Racing car at a track like Phoenix. There is a lot of downforce, like the Indy car, but you can still muscle one of these around, which you really can't do with an Indy car. I am really looking forward to that. I think this will be a lot like racing the IRL car up at Richmond later this summer. It is going to be wild and a lot of fun for the fans and for the drivers!"

The #45 is a tribute to Adam Petty, killed in New Hampshire last year. The sprinter, painted in the familiar red and silver of Petty's car, is being run in 2001 in Petty's memory.

Kite will continue to focus on the Indy Racing Northern Light Series in 2001 but plans to run as many as ten more winged-sprint car races throughout the Southeast in the Tommy Gainey-owned sprinter on off-weekends.

Text provided by Larry Thomas

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