PEVELY, Mo. — Kyle Larson continues to do things behind the wheel of a sprint car that will be talked about for years.
The Elk Grove, Calif., native has already achieved so much in his career despite seldom being a full-time sprint car driver due to NASCAR commitments.
A 2011 Gold Cup Race of Champions triumph at only 19 years old. A pair of NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals. A Kings Royal. A 12-win World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink sprint car season in only 26 feature starts in 2020.
Those are only a few of the many accomplishments Larson has chalked up, and he pulled something off on Friday night that’ll go down as one of the best drives he’s ever put together.
Larson lined up 21st for the 30-lap feature at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 after having to go to the Micro-Lite Last Chance Showdown and winning it. A victory in the main event was hardly on his mind when he rolled out for it. Maybe a strong charge for a solid finish, but a win? That didn’t seem likely.
And then one by one Larson started to pick off cars. By lap eight he’d cracked the top 10. But even 10 laps later when he entered the top five, victory still seemed out of reach. Then came a pivotal restart.
Larson roared into third in two circuits after restarting fifth with 11 laps to go. Then on lap 26 Sheldon Haudenschild tripped up and allowed him by for second. With only four laps remaining, all that stood between the 2021 NASCAR Cup series champion and completing an unforgettable drive to victory was James McFadden.
And even as McFadden took the white flag he appeared to be too far ahead with nearly a full second advantage. But then hope arose down the back straightaway.
A lapped car slipped in front of the Roth Motorsports No. 83sr exiting turn two allowing Larson to close in. McFadden went to slide the car in turn three, and Larson stuck the Silva Motorsports No. 57 to the bottom.
They both picked their front wheels up in a drag race down the front straightaway, and Larson edged him out by .053 seconds.
The crowd went wild.
“I’m out of breath,” Larson said. “I’ve been screaming the whole time since I got the checkered flag. I can’t say enough about Paul, Trevor, Doug, everybody on this team for working so hard. We’ve been terrible, and really, really bad tonight, too. And they’ve just been working hard, trying to get the car better each time. I felt like we were pretty good there in the feature. I felt like we could move around, get my wheels underneath me, and get grip through the center on restarts. I’m just super thankful. This is amazing. There was a kid that came up during the Midget A-main and said, ‘You think you’re going to win tonight?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I did not think we would win. So, this is pretty amazing.”
Larson is up to 33 career victories with The Greatest Show on Dirt. His fourth win in six tries at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 equals it with Attica Raceway Park as the second winningest track on his series résumé.
The drive from 21st marked the farthest back someone has won a World of Outlaws race from since Donny Schatz’s legendary drive to the Knoxville Nationals title in 2013.
Sheldon Haudenschild and James McFadden brought the field to green, and it was McFadden getting the early advantage on the outside.
The Australian pieced together a nearly perfect race. McFadden knifed his way through traffic in search of his first I-55 victory. Right when it seemed Haudenschild might be able to close in, McFadden added another slower car to the buffer between the two.
Even when Larson got to second with only a few laps remaining, McFadden’s lead didn’t seem in jeopardy. But one small slip from a lapped car on the final lap was enough to break his momentum down the back straightaway and hurt his entry angle into turn three.
Larson had one shot, and he took full advantage to steal the checkered flag on the final lap by putting together a perfect set of corners in the Silva Motorsports No. 57.
“I could see those two (McFadden and Haudenschild) running the top in (turns) three and four,” Larson explained. “And I knew my opportunity to get by them was if they made a mistake in (turns) three and four. Then we caught traffic, and all those lappers were on the bottom. I thought I probably wouldn’t get there. Then he got hung up real tight behind the lapper off (turn) two, kind of choked his momentum and forced him to the bottom. And I figured his angle was too bad to be able to stick it and he would probably be cautious or nervous of Sheldon or somebody coming up top in (turns) three and four. So, I figured he’d drive across, and I knew I just needed to square up my corner and just try and grab the moisture in the middle of the straightaway. I was able to do that and just edge him out.”
After leading all but the final few feet, McFadden was forced to settle for second in the Dennis and Teresa Roth-owned machine.
“I ran the top and Noah (Gass) was sort of running the middle, and I thought it was all good because he left me a lane,” McFadden said. “He just lost a bunch of traction off the corner, and I don’t know if he got into the fence a little bit. It just stopped him and parked him there, and I ran into the back of him. I peeled left to get under him, but my angle was sort of bad to get in there, so I had to slide across. That’s racing, mate. That’s the way it goes. Our car was fast. You win them that way, you lose them that way. We’ll come back tomorrow. I think this place owes me one.”
Rounding out the top three was Haudenschild in the Stenhouse Jr.-Marshall Racing/NOS Energy Drink No. 17.
“I feel like I ran a really careful race,” Haudenschild commented. “I really didn’t push the limits at all. That curb was tricky. I didn’t want to run her too hard and wad her up. I think my car was really close. James did a great job that whole race, and obviously Kyle was really good. I probably should’ve just moved around a bit more at the end and tried to get back to the bottom.”
Carson Macedo and Donny Schatz completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 57-Kyle Larson[21]; 2. 83SR-James McFadden[2]; 3. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[1]; 4. 41-Carson Macedo[4]; 5. 15-Donny Schatz[9]; 6. 1S-Logan Schuchart[8]; 7. 2-David Gravel[13]; 8. 83-Michael Kofoid[5]; 9. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[6]; 10. 49-Brad Sweet[11]; 11. 17B-Bill Balog[10]; 12. 6-Kelby Watt[7]; 13. 20G-Noah Gass[14]; 14. 7S-Landon Crawley[22]; 15. 70-Kraig Kinser[18]; 16. 24T-Christopher Thram[17]; 17. 53-Jessie Attard[24]; 18. 51B-Joe B Miller[19]; 19. 22M-Rees Moran[16]; 20. 3-Ayrton Gennetten[23]; 21. 24D-Danny Sams III[12]; 22. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[3]; 23. 23B-Brian Bell[15]; 24. 14-Corey Day[20]