Winning Moment: Kyle Larson blew past Ricky Thornton Jr. on the high side with three laps to go to prevail in a pitched three-way battle between himself, Thornton and Brandon Overton that lasted the final 20-plus laps of a wild Friday night (Jan. 27) at Golden Isles Speedway.
Dramatic Moment: Larson, who was visibly ecstatic about his first super late model win of 2023, revving his engine up and down on the cooldown lap, wrecked his No. 6 car in turn 3 attempting to do a victory burnout after clearing tech.
Said the driver in victory lane, “I’m an idiot.”
In a Nutshell: First Vado, now this. After a 2022 season of routs and angst over the droop rule, super late model racing is white-hot one month into 2023.
What They’ll Be Group Chatting About This Morning
First things first, apologies to any readers hoping to hear anything about the Southern Sprint Car Challenge at Volusia. Between the end of the heat races and the end of the feature at Golden Isles, I didn’t have enough bars in the stands to load DirtVision, much less stream Friday’s racing. To be fair, as good as the show was at Golden Isles, I’d have lost track anyhow.
My hotel Friday night was approximately 40 miles from Golden Isles Speedway, and it took every one of those 40 miles to get my jaw off the ground. The battle for the lead and the win between Larson, Overton and Thornton Friday night was motorized poetry, an absolute slobberknocker of a battle that saw all three drivers make bold moves, and mistakes, in pushing their cars to the ragged each for the win. Larson got the trophy, but all three drivers deserve applause for their efforts.
Larson’s victory Friday night was worth $12,000. Looking at the damage done to his racecar post-race, maybe the Kevin Rumley race team will break even on the night?
I don’t disagree with the criticism of the “droop rule” being too imprecise a measurement to literally determine a pass/fail of an inspection in late model racing, but after hearing that rule blamed for everything from boring races to the war in Ukraine I hope is in the past. Everything I’ve seen in super late model racing so far this year suggests that teams have gotten a year of this rules package under their belt and are learning to get racier with it. Go figure.
That Is, everyone driving a Longhorn chassis at least. If…
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