Everyone views this run by Larson and Silva differently, with responses molded by each on-track experience.
And while not everyone in the dead heat of Larson’s run feels the same pressure to step up, like Danny Dietrich – “We can beat the 57,” he simply says – most are experiencing it.
“He’s putting pressure on everyone,” Macri said. “He’s making it a lot harder for us and he’s making us scratch our head and do our homework.”
“He’s changing the game,” Ryan Smith noted.
“It’s a little frustrating,” Freddie Rahmer admitted.
“He’s setting the bar really high right now,” Marks said. “You have to keep up with him.”
One of those drivers who welcomes this challenge with open arms, rather than frustration and headaches, is Sammy Swindell.
The pressure of needing to make a living in this sport has sailed long ago for the 64-year-old, but that doesn’t deny the fact that Swindell badly wants to outduel Larson on one of these nights.
“I’ve had my day,” Swindell said. “But I’d like to step up and beat him here a few times. That’d do more for me than anything else. We have to get to that level.”
Swindell shared many iconic on-track moments with Wolfang in their heydey, including a battle for the win in the 1984 Knoxville Nationals.
Wolfgang passed Swindell late in the going for the win, a moment Todd Weikert called “the icing on the cake” for his legendary father, Bob. Swindell doesn’t remember that night, probably because he erased it from his memory bank long ago, but Todd Weikert does.
“[Sammy] had nothing for us that night,” Weikert said.
Weikert recalled after that moment, more eyes fixed their attention on the Weikert No. 29 wherever they went. Teams weren’t necessarily spying on his father, but they were close to it.
“Any time you get a dominator, if you give a [crap] about anything, you’re going to try anything to catch up,” Weikert said. “Everyone did kind of follow suit and try to watch and see what they’re doing to try and catch up. There’s no doubt about that.”
One of the most comparable traits about the Weikert-Wolfgang and Larson-Silva story are the amount of attention and analysis. Watch Larson for a few laps, and it’s no secret he’s wired to punish the top of the race track.
“I don’t know what it is, but the way he runs the wall, it’s visually different,” Dewease said.
“They are kind of one dimensional, but they do it everywhere,” Freddie Rahmer said. “I do think sprint car racing is changing. I don’t know if that’s better or for worse, but we’ll have to change with it.”
What the Rahmers aim for each night is to “have the wheels locked” and run at a steady pace within reason. But Larson is defying that, driving aggressively with wheel spin but fluidly with car control through parts of the race track that appear undesirable.
“The way he’s attacking the race track is changing,” Fred Rahmer said. “The way he’s racing is different than anyone else I raced against, in my opinion.”
“He can overdrive the car and it doesn’t hurt anything,” Swindell added. “He can make a mistake and he’s still good to go. The race car does everything he wants it to do.”
On Saturday night at Port Royal, even in conditions that seemed unfavorable and too slick for Larson to rim-ride without catching the fence or making it work all together, he charged to another staggering win.
Earlier that morning, Larson browsed archived news articles and the accomplishments of Wolfgang and Weikert, only because he was racing in the event that happens to honor the famed No. 29 and its owner.
“I knew he was a legend, but reading through everything he did, it’s unbelievable,” said Larson, who adores the history and figures of the sport that came before him.
That night, Larson stood in victory lane at the same place Weikert and Wolfgang feasted at, with a trophy honoring them in hand and the Weikert family there to congratulate him.
“I think it’s freaking amazing,” Todd Weikert said of Larson’s current success.
From frustration to challenge accepted, and from boredom to awe-inspired, two things can be agreed upon when it comes to the Elk Grove, Calif., native’s astounding run: it needs to be acknowledged one way or the other and the various levels of pressure are certainly on.
“He’s probably the most impressive guy I’ve seen drive a sprint car, within reason,” Fred Rahmer said. “We’re not going into the races thinking we can’t beat him.
“But I’m telling you, you’re going to have to run his pace to get the job done.”
At least since May 30, very few – if any – have been able to accomplish that feat.