And just like that, one year removed from leading all 50 laps to win his second Knoxville Nationals from the pole, Kyle Larson will once again lead the field to green in the biggest Sprint Car race of the year.
Larson was predictably good during his Thursday prelim night but he caught a significant break too.
The Knoxville Nationals format rewards execution during time trials, heat races and the feature with inverts thrown in to reward passing from deeper in the field. But it helps to draw an early qualifying spot to time trial while the track is still hammer down wet.
So naturally, during a Sprint Car season in which Larson and Paul Silva Racing has struggled with their qualifying package all season, Larson drew a ‘1’ and took advantage of it to the tune of the third fastest lap. He went ‘8’ to ‘3’ in his heat to lock into the preliminary feature, a race he won by outdueling fellow contender Rico Abreu.
To put it simply, the best chance that the rest of the field had to keep Larson away from the front of the field on Saturday night would be qualifying and ‘Yung Money’ drew the best possible hand.
So again, just like that, the two-time winner who led every lap last year is going to start the race from the lead.
“It was a really good night,” Larson said. “Good for us to draw the ‘1.’ A lot of things fell our way in the heat race tonight but our car was good enough that we could take advantage of all of the good fortune. It felt good to be able to capitalize.”
Listen, it was a fortuitous pill draw but Larson actually had some nerves about it too.
“I’ve never gone out here that early,” he said. “I’ve only been in the (first half of the group) like twice in my Nationals career. We’re always drawing 50 or worse so I didn’t really know where to run that early.”
Larson spoiled a lot of hopes on Thursday, starting with the pill draw, but ending with a pass on Abreu in traffic to take both the win and the pole away from him. In scoring win points, Larson then tied quick-timer Daryn Pittman for the most overall points and held the tiebreaker with his win.
That put Larson on the pole over Pittman, spoiling his hopes at the pole too.
Clearly stated, everyone who wants to win the Knoxville Nationals did not want to see this outcome on Thursday night.
On one hand, Abreu locked into the show and will start sixth, but on the other …
“I just hate losing to Larson,” he said with a chuckle.
Pittman was the show on Thursday, blistering the field by over three-tenths in qualifying driving the Don Kreitz Jr. owned 69K, went ‘8’ to ‘1’ to stay perfect and only lost the pole by virtue of Larson winning. It was a statement for the 45-year-old, technically retired, former World of Outlaws champion.
“Going into the A Main, knowing we were still perfect in points, I feel like the pole was right there in our grasps but I knew it was going to be tough because, after we went eighth to first, I was cheering for those other guys to struggle or miss it but there were like five guys who transferred in with a shot at the pole so I knew the A-main was going to be a dogfight.
“And listen, Larson is the best guy to ever drive a race car in my lifetime, or anyone’s life time, and it’s just a lot of fun anytime we can be in the same sentence with him. That’s an honor. So I’m happy to be on the front row, even if I’m a little disappointed.”
Tyler Courtney went second fast in qualifying, and fourth in the feature, to start third on Saturday night.
“Those are the two guys to beat right there,” he succinctly said.
“Larson runs such a hard pace that you just have to go keep up with him,” Courtney added. “You just have to force him into a mistake and capitalize on a mistake he usually doesn’t make. I’m excited though. I love racing against Kyle and he makes all of us better.
“If you come out of here on Saturday and you’ve beat the 57 for the Knoxville Nationals, you’ve done something really special.”
Top-16 Locked In
- Kyle Larson
- Daryn Pittman
- Tyler Courtney
- Carson Macedo
- Giovanni Scelzi
- Rico Abreu
- Brian Brown
- Anthony Macri
- Brady Bacon
- Scott Bogucki
- Corey Day
- Brent Marks
- Bill Balog
- Sheldon Haudenschild
- Chase Randall
- Jacob Allen
Stacked Hard Knox and B
Who you don’t see already in the top-16 of the Saturday night main event is previous winners like five-time World of Outlaws champion Brad Sweet, World of Outlaws points leader David Gravel and 10-time Outlaws champion and 11-time Knoxville Nationals winner Donny Schatz.
Schatz was objectively awful on Wednesday night and will have to race his way into the feature on Friday during Hard Knox night. Gravel suffered a mixed bag and is currently slated to start sixth in the last chance race, a race that will be led to the green by Sweet, after everything that went wrong for him on Thursday.
“I mean, we had a little bit of bad luck in the heat,” Sweet said. “Like the first start didn’t go our way, and the caution saved us a little bit. And then we battled for the transfer and got transferred.
“I felt lik we were in pretty good shape based off what we saw last night, 16th quick, making it through the hear but there were just a lot of weird circumstances that changed the game a little bit. We just missed the invert, which was kind of wild, started ninth and drove up to seventh but we just had all those fast guys in front of us so it was hard and we just needed to be better, I guess.”
So now he starts from the pole of a race that will only transfer four to the main event.
“You know, there’s like two ways of looking at it,” Sweet said. “It’s a chance to experiment but this track is also physically demanding, mentaly demanding so 50 laps is already long so then a 22 lap B main into a 50 lap A main is just hard on everybody and hard on everything.
“We’ve seen the race won from the B so it’s not impossible but it’s also going to be a tall tall task.”