THE CRASH DAVIS OF NASCAR KANKE PUSHES THE LIMITS IN MINOR CIRCUIT ON THE RIDE OF HIS LIFE.

Byline: TIM HADDOCK Staff Writer

Before M.K. Kanke made his first start on the NASCAR Southwest Series, before he ever won his first Southwest Series race, he could say he beat Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip and Neil Bonnett in the same race.

Kanke, who was a teenager at the time, remembers battling and beating Earnhardt in a late model stock car race around the half-mile dirt track at Ascot Park in Gardena 25 years ago.

Earnhardt finished second, Waltrip was fourth. Kanke said he doesn't remember where Bonnett finished. Back then, the top drivers in NASCAR would race at Riverside International Raceway on Sundays and some of them would visit Ascot to race late models on Saturday night.

It was the biggest win of Kanke's career at the time, probably one of his biggest still. It would be another seven years before Kanke would make his first Southwest Series start; another nine years before he won his first Southwest Series race.

After nearly 30 years of racing stock cars around Southern California and on NASCAR's Elite Division, Southwest Series, Kanke added another historic win to his career at Stockton 99 Speedway on July 15.

He won the 22nd race of his Southwest Series career and moved past Rick Carelli for most wins in series history. It was a record that stood for 14 years.

``If you're around long enough to do 'em, they get broke,'' Carelli said. ``I'm surprised it hung on that long.''

In some regard, Kanke has become the Crash Davis of NASCAR. His longevity in the Southwest Series, the minor leagues of stock car racing, has pushed Kanke past milestones other drivers would never approach. Most drivers spend a few years racing on the Southwest Series, then move on if they have any talent or resources.

The tall, lanky, 44-year-old Kanke, who has a body frame better suited for basketball than stock car racing, stayed in the Southwest Series for 20 years. He has raced in every season but one since the series began in 1986.

Through his years on what he calls ``The Tour,'' Kanke has more stories about promising drivers than Morris Buttermaker has about spring training baseball games. Most importantly, Kanke said he has no regrets about racing on the Southwest Series and setting records at one of the lowest tiers of NASCAR competition.

The next stop for the Southwest Series is Irwindale Speedway on Saturday night. Kanke won at Irwindale last year for the 20th victory of his career.

Career win No. 21 came at Altamont Motorsports Park in Tracy in July. The win at Stockton was Kanke's second of the year, his second in a row and the 22nd of his career.

A 20-year Southwest Series veteran, Kanke is also the career leader in top-five finishes, top-10 finishes and money won.

``We go way back,'' said Ron Hornaday Jr., who drives on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series now and raced against Kanke and Carelli in the early 1990s on the Southwest Series. ``I'm glad to see he's still running well. It's pretty awesome. Mike's been a hard competitor all his life. Mike deserves it.''

Unlike Kanke, Carelli won all of his races over a seven-year span, from 1986 to 1992. He has raced on the Southwest Series off and on since 1992, but his last full season came 14 years ago.

``It was a short stint, but I had a lot of success at it,'' said Carelli, the general manager at Kevin Harvick Inc., which has NASCAR teams for drivers Hornaday, Burney Lamar, Ron Fellows and Tony Stewart.

Kanke said Carelli and Hornaday were as tough as anyone he would race against at any level. It was because of drivers like Carelli, Hornaday, Dan Press and Mike Chase that it took Kanke three years to win his first Southwest Series race. It came at Cajon Speedway near San Diego in 1989.

``I was second eight or nine times before I won,'' said Kanke, a Kennedy High of Granada Hills graduate who lives in Frazier Park. ``We had been runner-up for a while.''

He had one victory in his first 70 races. He went nearly four seasons and 29 races before he won his second Southwest Series race in 1993.

``It was probably the toughest the first five to seven years,'' Kanke said. ``It was hard. When you won back then, it was a big thing.''

His first multi-win season came in 1995, when he won two races. He won 12 races over a four-year span from 1995-98. He posted career-high four-win seasons three times (1997, `98, 2001).

It was during the 1995 season that Carelli took an interest in Kanke's career. Carelli said Kanke became the class of the Southwest Series that year and decided to race against him in Tucson, Ariz.

``He was the guy you had to beat,'' Carelli said. ``And I wanted to race against him at the time. He was on top of everything.''

Things didn't work out too well for Carelli. He crashed and didn't finish the race.

The race that probably stands out most for Kanke came in 1999 at Colorado National Speedway.

Kurt Busch, now a driver for Penske Racing South and the first NASCAR Nextel Cup Series champion, was the star of the Southwest Series back then. He won six races, a series-record four in a row at one point, and his only Southwest Series championship in 1999. He had already won two races when the Colorado National Speedway event came up on the schedule in August.

Kanke was not racing much that year. He only started six races in 1999 and wasn't planning on entering the Colorado race until Mike Bonicelli asked him to race.

Bonicelli owned a Southwest Series race team based in Colorado Springs. But he wasn't having much success winning races back then. No one but Busch really had any sort of consistency that year.

Kanke accepted Bonicelli's offer and won his only race of the year. Busch came in second.

``We totally beat him that night,'' Kanke said. ``He was not happy.''

Busch is one of many drivers who graduated from the Southwest Series to compete at the higher levels of NASCAR. Kevin Harvick, Ken Schrader and Dick Trickle raced their share of Southwest Series events. Burney Lamar, Matt Crafton, Paul Menard, Auggie Vidovich and David Gilliland have used the Southwest Series to move up to the Craftsman Truck Series and Busch Series.

``The tour brought guys out of the West,'' Kanke said. ``Before that, Cup guys didn't come out of the West.''

Kanke could have been one of those guys, too. He said NASCAR teams have offered him opportunities to move up in class, but Kanke decided long ago that it was more important to keep his family in one place and not pursue a career in NASCAR.

``He was a family man, working hard and trying to race at the same time,'' said Hornaday, who was hand-picked by Earnhardt for his Truck Series team after racing in a Southwest Series event at Phoenix International Raceway. ``You never know. I just got the lucky break. Being there at the right place at the right time. It's the luck of the draw.

``This is a brutal and tough business. You don't get that one break, you're never going to make it.''

For Kanke, the decision to stay in Southern California and race on the Southwest Series was an easy one. He said all he needed to do was look at his family and know he made the right deicision.

It's a decision he does not regret.

``I don't look at records like everybody else does,'' Kanke said. ``I just want to go to the next race.''

Through all the wins, all the poles and all the money, Kanke has never won a Southwest Series championship. This season will be his last chance.

NASCAR decided to eliminate the Elite Division from its developmental program. This will be the last year of Southwest Series competition. There are also three other regional Elite Divisions in NASCAR that are going to be eliminated at season's end.

Kanke has been close to winning a championship, most recently in 2002. Kanke was running away with the points race when he crashed at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma and broke his leg. He wasn't able to return to racing until the following year, and Eddy McKean won the Southwest Series title.

But winning a championship isn't that important to Kanke.

``If it happens, it happens,'' Kanke said. ``If it doesn't, that's OK. It hasn't been our deal.''

When the season started, Kanke said there were three tracks he wanted to win at: Altamont, Stockton and Phoenix.

He was able to cross Altamont and Stockton off his list, but Phoenix International Raceway remains a winless track for Kanke.

He gets his last chance to win there on Nov. 9. Phoenix International Raceway will host the last Southwest Series race that day.

``We've finished good at Phoenix. It's a tough racetrack,'' Kanke said. ``Kind of like Daytona for Dale Earnhardt. I'd like to win there. I'd like to make that happen.''

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3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) no caption (MK Kanke)

(2 -- color) M.K. Kanke is a 20-year veteran of the NASCAR Southwest Series.

Chris Hunefeld/Stockton 99 Speedway

(3) M.K. Kanke, a 20-year Southwest Series vet and the career leader in top-five finishes, stops next at Irwindale on Saturday.

Daily News File Photo

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