One day after deciding the World of Outlaws points paying season opener amongst themselves, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell started on the front row for the feature and once again dictated the terms of national Sprint Car competition.
Bell narrowly won on Thursday night, by 0.005, but Larson responded by leading all 25 laps and now they both have little gator trophies, which are awarded to winners of DIRTcar Nationals races every Speedweeks at Volusia County.
Larson also leads the week long championship standings, which pays out the Big Gator Trophy, and these trophies are the entire reason he and team owner/crew chief Paul Silva have come to Florida in the first place.
“This is the one place that I came to the most that I haven’t won at,” Larson said. “You know, a lot of tracks, I run there a few times and we get a win. But Volusia, I don’t know, we definitely ran here, I’m guessing 15 times maybe, without a win.
“So yeah, that lingers in your head a little bit. It feels good to win and honestly just to qualify good. Every time I come here, we’re three tenths off so when you know you’re going to be three tenths off before you qualify, that’s frustrating
“So it was a bit of a surprise a few nights ago to qualify good and that just gives you a lot of motivation for the rest of the week because the rest of the nights because we always race well here but just never had the track position to go with it.”
Larson has raced the season opening week with the World of Outlaws several times over the years but having the NASCAR Clash at Bowman Gray after three years of doing it in Los Angeles made it a more reasonable proposition.
“I was like, ‘well, this is perfect’ because I have to be here anyways, so I’ll stay a few extra days and then get to race Volusia,” Larson said. “So yeah, (Paul) was obviously happy about that. We both don’t have to say it.
“We both have not won here, so we want to win here. But we don’t have a lot of communication, Paul and I. We don’t talk on the phone. We text every now and then, about the schedule stuff more than anything.
“So, once I send the schedule, I think he’s got confidence that I’m going to be here in time for hot laps and I’m confident that he will be structured and all that. So I’m confident the trailer and car will be here when I show up too.”
Silva notoriously doesn’t speak publicly so it’s astounding if not entirely surprising to learn that he and Larson do not overly communicate either.
Bell, famously, hasn’t been allowed to race on native dirt discipline since 2022 on the orders of NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs.
That policy was loosened in advance of the 2025 season.
Since then, Bell has raced Micro Sprints, Midgets and now Sprint Cars, routinely finding himself running head-to-head with Larson in each discipline.
He is having a blast right now.
Upon walking up to him after the race on Friday night, Bell was trying to convince team owner and crew chief Don Kreitz Jr. to race together on some short tracks. The 69k has a reputation as only being fast in Pennsylvania and on half-miles and Bell believes he can put it in Victory Lane at a short track too.
Bell was laughing and clearly just having the time of his life.
“Don,” Bell shouted like a kid. “It is an absolute pleasure to drive your race car.”
And he meant it like a kid on Christmas getting his favorite toy.
“It’s so much fun,” Bell said. “This is so much fun. And you know, the team is, we’re just the part-time racers, the driver included and we’re having a blast.”
Chris Gilligan, known as ‘Spider,’ is the prep shop manager at Joe Gibbs Racing who has also worked for a long time with Kreitz and initiated the conversations that led to this part-time pairing coming to fruition.
Bell and Larson, alongside a record roster consisting of both World of Outlaws and High Limit teams, will race one more time at Volusia on Saturday night.
“It’s really cool to me,” Larson said, “that basically two NASCAR Cup Series guys have come down here and are leading the World of Outlaws standings entering the final night at Volusia.”
