Kyle Larson Will Defend His Knoxville Nationals Title from Pole

Kyle Larson will start on pole at the Knoxville Nationals for the second year in a row on Saturday. Larson secured 490 points during his Thursday night qualifying, tied with the No. 69k of Daryn Pittman, and secured the pole on a winning tiebreaker.

Larson will attempt to win his third Knoxville Nationals title in four years from the pole. Just as when he ran the Indianapolis 500, scheduling conflicts with NASCAR could have made that a challenge. Late qualifying for the Cup Series race at Richmond is scheduled late on Saturday. Realistically, that meant Larson had to lock into Sunday's A-Main on Thursday since he wouldn't be able to make it back to Iowa in time to run any earlier feeder races.

Luck was on Larson's side at the start when his team pulled the lowest number in the pill draw, securing the first qualifying spot on Thursday. Early qualifying made all the difference for Matt Juhl, who was the first out to set the time the night before. He blew away Wednesday's competition by 0.223 second.

Early qualifying didn't show the same advantage on Thursday night, but Larson still secured a third place qualifying behind Pittman. Larson moved from eighth to third in his heat to secure a sixth-place starting position in Thursday's feature. Within the first five laps, Larson was up to fourth behind Bill Balog, Carson Macedo, and Rico Abreu.

The 25-lap feature at Knoxville was done in 6:53.8 seconds. By lap 13, Larson was in podium position. The Elk Grove, California, native found success picking through lapped cars to take second from the No.41 of Macedo and, while racing to the white flag, stole the lead from Abreu.

Larson won his second Nationals last year after starting from the pole, leading all 50 laps. Depending on how the track works out on Saturday, the competition will have a hard time stopping Larson from doing it again.

That is scary effectiveness from a team that only runs a fraction of the sprint-car season. Larson and Silva Motorsports have notably fewer laps over the course of a season, but they pull out results.

Road & Track caught up with Larson before qualifying.

"Our success in the past week and forever with Paul is great being a part-time team," Larson told R&T. "It means a little bit more when we do win and win these big events because of it."

Last weekend, with the NASCAR break, Larson was able to dial back in to sprint-car racing. He did so by winning from 21st in the Friday night feature at I-55 before backing it in the Ironman 55 Saturday night going from 12th to the win. On Monday, he followed it up once again with a win in the Front Row Challenge at Southern Iowa Speedway after starting in 13th. That is 44 cars passed in three races. The only thing missing for Silva Motorsports was qualifying.

Sprint-car racing is at a very healthy and competitive place in 2024; the races that Larson enters are packed with talent, and he's continuing to find ways to win. Earlier this week, after his string of three wins, an X user attempted to call out Larson and Silvia for having better equipment than everyone else. Larson responded with a video of Silvia dumpster diving to save $24 and informed the internet fan that those wins were also won on another team's used tires.

While Larson's Cup success and star quality are great for the gate, his dirt racing always holds up to the hype. On Saturday, the rest of the field has to stop him from living up to that promise if they want to win sprint-car racing's biggest prize.

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