Kyle Larson closed out on his first ever national Sprint Car touring championship on Tuesday night.
It just so happens to be the series he co-founded this year with brother-in-law and four-time World of Outlaws champion Brad Sweet in the High Limit Sprint Car Series. Larson entered the race with a 15-point championship lead over Rico Abreu, meaning that a seventh-place finish is all he would need if Abreu won the race.
As it so happened, Abreu started the race from the pole and Larson would begin seventh.
They stayed that way through halfway before Larson began making passed on the outside by attacking a sloppy cushion while also avoiding a pair of spins that occurred directly in front of him. Larson even challenged Abreu for the lead in the closing laps before settling for third behind Abreu and Tyler Courtney.
Larson even won a championship ring, which was kind of funny, because it was one that he designed earlier in the year for the eventual series champion. It has a diamond and opens up with rolled up cash inside it.
“It’s pretty sick,” Larson said. “It was my idea to get the ring because I started collecting them with the races and championship on the NASCAR side. … It opens and there’s a sprint car and cash in it. It’s really cool and it would have been cool if Rico could have won it too, but this thing is awesome.”
Larson has always said that he wanted to chase a World of Outlaws season after his NASCAR career ends and while this is not a full 80-plus race campaign, it is his first touring championship in a 410 Sprint Car.
“I don’t get the chance to race for points in Sprint Car,” Larson said. “I was lucky enough to win the NARC (410 west coast sprint car) championship in 2010 with the Kaedings.
“I haven’t chased points in dirt since then. Even though it’s a short season, 11 races, it was intense. When it’s short, you really have to be on your game, especially going against Rico who is up front every week in every series he races.
“Feels good. Rico had an issue at Lakeside and that was the championship but we still had to be on our game because he chipped away at our lead. It’s cool to win the first one and hopefully we can keep doing it if my schedule works for all these mid-races.”
Next up for the High Limit Sprint Car Series is a potential merger with the All Stars Circuit of Champions, owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart to provide a strong challenger to the premier Sprint Car series in the country, the World of Outlaws.
The series was conceived, at least publicly, as a mid-week series that paid big money for teams that didn’t race full-time on the World of Outlaws tour. In addition to Larson and Abreu, the race featured the likes of Tyler Courtney, Cory Eliason, Justin Peck and Chase Randall, all nationally recognized notables in that discipline.
Alex Bowman was scheduled to race the full season too until he suffered an injury in April during the race at 34 Raceway in Iowa.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.