Kyle Larson wins fourth Knoxville Nationals title hours after Richmond Cup race
Tyler Carr | World of Outlaws
When Kyle Larson won his preliminary feature and secured pole position for Saturday night's 65th Knoxville Nationals, he resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't be able to race in the main event. The highly prestigious 410 sprint-car race in Iowa competed directly against the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, over 1,100 miles apart, and Larson needed to prioritize duties behind the wheel of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Yet somehow, hours after earning a desperately needed sixth-place finish in the Cup Series, the 34-year-old climbed from Silva Motorsports' No. 57 car with his fourth Knoxville crown-jewel victory in six years.
The only scenario where Larson could have made it to Knoxville in time for the A-Main required rain at the 0.5-mile dirt oval -- a former two-time stop on the Craftsman Truck Series schedule -- just down the road from Iowa Raceway. And unlike his two Indianapolis 500/Coca-Cola 600 Double attempts, Mother Nature played her cards right.
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"It’s extremely surreal," Larson told worldofoutlaws.com. "Just to talk about the day and the range of emotions. Even going back to the last couple days, I had no emotion. I knew I wouldn’t be able to race, but there was still that glimmer of hope with the rain in the forecast."
For many reasons, Larson still wanted to enter the World of Outlaws event, knowing the unlikelihood that he'd compete in the 50-lap, $200,000 win event. He remained in Iowa after last Sunday's Cup event and banked $13,000 in a Capitani Classic win at Knoxville that night, then secured another $21,000 with a victory Monday night at Southern Iowa Speedway. His Thursday prelim victory at Knoxville paid another $12,000, and by having a Silva team member start-and-park for the Saturday main, Larson would have earned another $15,000 -- all key funding for the part-time sprint-car effort.
As Saturday progressed, the forecast worsened in Knoxville, but Larson settled in and focused on 400 laps at Richmond. He qualified 30th Friday afternoon and began his uphill battle at the 0.75-mile short track, falling a lap behind early. After finishing 25th in Stage 1, Larson improved to 13th at the end of Stage 2, earning the free pass to return to the lead lap.
Meanwhile, the Iowa skies opened up, pushing back the start of the Nationals and putting the evening of racing in flux. During a midway caution at Richmond, crew chief Cliff Daniels radioed to his driver that he could be traveling to Iowa after all.
"He had done a really good job of this week kind of resigning himself to the fact that he wasn't going to be able to start the A-Main, and not going to tell you exactly what I told him, but using appropriate language, I was like, 'man, like, we can have stuff ready for you. We can go get this,' " Daniels told reporters after the race. "Jeff Andrews (Hendrick Motorsports President) was very instrumental in helping us get a plan laid out. Colby (Gorniewicz, Larson's public relations representative), standing right here beside me, had a lot of communication with people back in Knoxville, and I said, hey, look, why don't we just have a plane ready, have stuff ready to go, and if it works out, then great. Like, I'd much rather have a plan in place that we can say no to, or if they get the feature in, so be it, than to have nothing prepared.
"(Larson) kept telling me no; he kept telling Jeff Andrews no, but we were persistent because we knew that if we get him there, he can probably do something special."
And coincidentally, once Larson knew a trip to Knoxville was plausible, his Richmond race turned for the better. He rocketed into the top 10 late and came home sixth, scoring his best result since Sonoma after a stretch of four finishes outside the top 30 in five races dropped him five spots to 10th in points.
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