Over the past week in Iowa, the most diehard fans in Sprint Car racing had started to lay into Kyle Larson pretty hard.
After his improbable victory in the 65th Knoxville Nationals, Larson laid right back into them.
“I hope all the people bitching about us running our preliminary night understand why,” said Larson in Victory Lane. “This was the best-case scenario.”
Larson had already drawn the ire of a subset of the fanbase on Monday in winning the Front Row Challenge at Southern Iowa Speedway with an aggressive slider on reigning Nationals winner Ryan Timms.
Then Larson entered into the most prestigious dirt race in the world with no real intent towards actually seeing the week to completion. His NASCAR Cup Series responsibilities with Hendrick Motorsports at Richmond Raceway coincided with the main event on Saturday night.
Larson then went out and captured the pole for Saturday’s Sprint Car race with a victory in the preliminary event on Thursday night. There were boos from about half the crowd who felt like Larson was taking a spot from someone who intended to be there.
He was reluctant to admit it but Larson was always holding out hope that what ultimately happened was a realistic possibility -- two separate storms delaying the start of the Grandaddy of Them All by four hours.
So, Larson went on to finish sixth in the Cup Series race, flew two hours to nearby Pella Airport, and led all 50 laps without having turned a single lap since Thursday night. There were a lot of financial reasons to race all week even if they hadn’t gotten lucky but this is why Larson and team owner Paul Silva hedged their bets.
“Yeah, I hope they're all quiet now,” Larson said. “I'm sure they'll still find a way to be like, ‘Oh, well, they still need to change the rule and stuff like that,’ but I'm glad it hopefully showed them this is why you do everything you can to position yourself because anything could happen like it did tonight.”
Even though he hoped he could return, Larson also wasn’t going to do anything on Saturday in Richmond to indicate that he wasn’t focused on winning races and championships for crew chief Cliff Daniels and Mr. Hendrick.
But it was Daniels that came over their radio during a mid-race caution, telling him about a plan that he and Hendrick president Jeff Andrews had formulated to get him back to Iowa in time.
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“Knoxville has not even started hot laps yet. Big delay for the race, don’t know if it’s tomorrow yet but they’re way behind. Just so you know”-Daniels
“Knoxville?!”- Larson
“Knoxville yeah. We’re working on a plan for you”- Daniels
“Okay”
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Make no mistake, Andrews and Daniels are invested in everything else Larson has going on in racing too, and when you’re the two-time and reigning Cup Series champion, that makes it easier to warrant that investment too.
But Larson was never going to ask them.
“I wondered if they even started hot laps, or if they were in the D or C Main, so I could get time to watch when we were done racing,” Larson said. “I wondered if it's rained. I wondered if I do have a shot.
“But I never wanted to key up and ask because that's just a bad look. And I didn't want it to come across like I wasn't focused on the race at all because these were just quick brief moments. Your mind kind of wanders under those long cautions. And I was thinking about other stuff as well outside of just Sprint Car racing.
“But yeah, when Cliff came on and said that, I was like, ‘did he just say what I think he did, and that’s why I said ‘Knoxville’ the way I did. It didn’t change my approach to Richmond or anything.”
But it was funny in a way because their race turned around from that moment, Larson and Daniels turning their car around from a fringe top-10 contender to one that finished sixth. As soon as the race ended, Daniels told Larson that he was excused from post-race media obligations and that Hendrick had prepared his plane with dinner and hydration.
“Oh shit, this is real,” Larson said if his headspace in that moment.
Larson spent the plane ride filling out his post-race debrief form for Daniels, something every driver does after a race, and was given a police escort from Pella Airport to Knoxville Raceway.
Cold turkey Larson outdueled Sheldon Haudenschild for his fourth victory in the Knoxville Nationals.
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Of course, Larson also wants to count the 2020 race that was held in the place of the Knoxville Nationals, called The One and Only, which was effectively the same format but in front of fewer fans due to COVID restrictions.
But that’s another battle for another day, as is the 2027 NASCAR conflict with the Knoxville Nationals, this time being the Bristol Night Race.
But as he proved in the wee hours of Sunday morning, you never say never, and this is why Larson and Silva put their car on pole in the first place.
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