Yahoo Autos Kyle Larson is Once Again a Knoxville Nationals Champion
Before the feature rolled off on Saturday Night for the 63rd running of the Knoxville Nationals, Kyle Larson took the stage to cheers and, for the first time, a clear amount of boos.
Larson was the first to point it out, telling the stands that he guesses he'll just have to put on a show.
That's what he did, leading from the drop of the green flag to the wave of the checkered, securing his sixth straight win going back to winning NASCAR's return to the Brickyard 400 in late July.
Larson took the lead at the start of the 50-lap feature, with the No. 69k of Daryn Pittman hanging close for the first few laps before being left behind by lap four. A caution with 13 laps completed for Logan Schuchart brought the field back together.
Saturday night at the Knoxville Nationals is the only time in professional dirt sprint car racing that teams stop for a pit, splitting the 50-lap race into two 25-lap segments.
Larson led at the halfway point, and under the four-minute pit period, Larson's car owner and crew chief Paul Silva were one of the few not to change the right rear. Minimal wear was present after the first 25 laps. Silva decided there was no reason to risk the good performance they were displaying on the track.
"He’s done that in the past," Larson said on Silva's decision. "Our tires looked really good at the break, and Paul is really smart. There’s no reason to put on new tires if there's no damage. We didn’t have any blisters; we didn’t show any wear. So we decided to keep them on. I feel like we’ve had this year at times, and maybe I’m just using this as an excuse because we’ve sucked, but we’ve had some inconsistent tires that have thrown us off."
When the race resumed, Larson hit the track with even more confidence. He was now being chased down by Giovanni Scelzi, who came close to being the youngest winner of the Knoxville Nationals in 2021, the first year Larson won.
Scelzi, the son of drag racing legend Gary Scelzi, has lost his fair share of the dirt crown jewels as he works through his sophomore season with the World of Outlaws.
The young California had to remind himself in the press conference that he is still young at 22 years old, which proves difficult when he shares the podium with 18-year-old Corey Day.
"I think sometimes that I'm only 22 years old; I know Corey is 13," Scelzi joked. "I'll say it's a little discouraging to see Corey running so good, not discouraging but worrying I guess. When I was his age I made the show but didn't have near as good of a run as he did."
Day not only rounded out the podium but, with his run from 11th to 3rd, captured the hard charger award on a track that few could successfully pass on.
"There was a nice curb around [the track]," Day told Road & Track. "I think I have the best race car in the country when it gets like that. I was really surprised with some of the cars that I was passing around there, I didn't expect them to leave me the lane when they did. I wasn't complaining about it, for sure.
"Macri was the hardest to pass," Day continued. "Macedo was more around the bottom and middle, but [Macri] was really around the top. He was one of the only ones that I encountered that was every lap, so it was hard to pick him apart and know what he was going to do to make my mistake."
The two mentioned by Day finished directly behind him, with Carson Macedo in fourth and Anthony Macri in fifth.
While it was Larson's race to win or lose in the end, the talent and competition through the front of the field shows just how hard it is to win a sprint car race in 2024 even if Larson is out of town.
One of the more surprising results of the weekend was that the two points leader in the dueling sprint car series, Larson's High Limit Racing and the World of Outlaw, both had to qualify for Saturday feature through the B-Main. Brad Sweet won from the pole to start in 16th, and David Gravel finished third to start 18th. In the feature, the two would finish 19th and 12th, respectively.
Larson has now won three of the last four Knoxville Nationals, and in 2020, he won the COVID replacement dubbed 'The One and Only.'
Donny Schatz once won eight of nine on his way to 11 overall. These are the goalposts for Larson, who has figured out how to run consistently and successfully at Knoxville.
Larson believes that the 2024 track was the most challenging track that he's run and won in the Knoxville Nationals, with the 2023 and 2021 tracks being extremely similar.
You Might Also Like
