Tony Stewart Racing to sack Kinser
Kinser, who replaced Paul McMahan prior to the 2008 season, recorded two wins with TSR at Grays Harbor Raceway and North Central Speedway.
"The hard part was we waited to a part of the season that's kind of hard for him, helping him get a ride for next year, which we're doing everything we can to help with that," Stewart said. "It was kind of hard for both of us. We saw some improvement early fall that we thought was going to continue and it fell back off at the end of the year."
Kinser and teammate Donny Schatz both raced separate engine and chassis packages at TSR. Schatz won his fourth consecutive championship running the J&J chassis while Kinser raced the Maxim.
"We're trying to figure out how to bring that together where both guys are running the same chassis and same engine package," Stewart said. "So we're trying to find a driver that likes the J&J car like Donny does and somebody that we feel will be an asset to Donny as a teammate and be able to work together with him. So that's what we're working toward."
"At Kraig's age Donny Schatz wasn't winning very many races," 20-time World of Outlaws champion Steve Kinser said. "There's a lot of potential there. I just hope the race team wants to make something out of it."
Unfortunately for Kraig, Stewart decided to fire him anyway.