It was one of the best Sprint Car races of this decade, or at least, as articulated by the son of one of the modern best to do it.
World of Outlaws points leader David Gravel, seeking his first career championship on the tour, outdueled Kyle Larson and Buddy Kofoid in a thriller on the shortest track on the schedule in Jacksonville, Illinois.
The highlights will speak for itself here.
Gravel couldn’t contain his excitement over how much fun that was upon climbing out of the car.
“You like that shit,” Gravel said to the largest crowd in the history of the Illinois quarter-mile. “Man, what a great race car. Cody Jacobs, Zach (Patterson), and Stephen (Hamm-Reilly), they deserved that win. I was able to run lanes other people weren’t and had a great car.
“Honestly, I was fairly conservative, and then being too conservative got Kyle back by me, and I knew once I got to clear him, I had to move up because he’d be pounding the top. I had the wing pretty far back and was pushing really bad on entry going into (Turn) 1 and wasn’t making a good corner, but I knew I had to screw him up there at the end.”
Even in defeat, Larson had just as much fun … and it was probably fair to suggest that Kraig Kinser did him no favors, being held up behind the lapper for several laps allowing Gravel to make the winning pass. Gravel got by for the final time on Lap 24 of a race that was shortened from 40 to 35 due to concerns of the track taking rubber.
“Traffic was thick, for sure,” Larson said. “Being the leader, I knew he was there obviously because he passed me and I got him back. And then Kraig (Kinser) was doing his thing running the middle. I’ve got to watch it back. I don’t know if I got too impatient or what. I couldn’t follow because the pace was starting to slow down as I was getting to his back bumper. I knew Gravel was right there, and he seemed like he could move around a lot. I shot the gap and couldn’t get down the backstretch good and knew he’d be coming. I knew we were getting close to the end there because we had run a lot of laps. It was a great race. Super, super fun.”
Buddy Kofoid started on the pole but ran inside the top-three all race, mixing it up with Gravel and Larson, and offered the same enthusiasm.
“That was a badass race,” Kofoid said. “I hope you guys all enjoyed that. That was about as tight and full send as you can get at a track like this. I enjoy that stuff. That’s kind of what I come from. And then with the Midget stuff, you could always run like that and make speed. It was fun. I wish we could get a win. We’re so close. Our car is so good.”
Gravel won for a series leading four World of Outlaws wins. His 92nd win broke a tie with Bead Sweet for ninth on the all-time wins list. His car owner, Tod Quiring, is also now at 98 World of Outlaws wins as both approach 100.
Gravel also extended his points lead to 56 over 10-time champion Donny Schatz and 64 over Gio Scelzi.
It was also a pretty star studded A-main too that also featured High Limit Racing wins leader Corey Day and points leader Sweet.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.