KNOXVILLE, I.A.- Saturday night (Aug. 10) marked the 63rd running of The Grandaddy of Them All, the Knoxville Nationals. A full card of alphabet soup starting with an E-main led us to the 50-lap finale at night’s end.
In the end, all the pomp and circumstance wrapped up with a familiar result. For the second-straight year and third time in four runs, it was Kyle Larson that emerged victorious.
Larson led all 50-laps of the main event, dominating Saturday’s feature for the second time in a row. The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion has now led 100 consecutive A-main laps in the Nationals after also leading wire-to-wire from pole in 2023.
The win continues a run of terror for Larson and crew chief Paul Silva, as they’ve now won five consecutive Sprint Car races. The pairing swept the Ironman weekend at I-55 Speedway, won the Front Row Challenge at Southern Iowa Speedway and have now claimed both their prelim night and the Nationals main event at Knoxville Raceway.
“The first one is always going to mean the most I think,” Larson told Frontstretch. “But this one means a lot, just because of how bad we’ve struggled leading into the last couple weeks.
“Two weeks ago, I did not think that we would win the Knoxville Nationals. I mean we’re just fresh off of missing the Kings Royal, so I didn’t think we could do it. Paul [Silva], Trevor (Canales) and Doug, they worked their asses off and found some speed and you know, equated to a win.”
Larson was joined on the podium by Gio Scelzi and Corey Day, who completed the California sweep of the podium. Scelzi, the Wednesday night winner, seemed to have something for Larson just past halfway, but faded in the closing laps.
Day earned the hard-charger award, driving from 11th to third in his Nationals run. He was a recent Knoxville winner, having won at the Iowa track in a June World of Outlaws, but Day simply ran out of time to challenge the leaders without a late caution to bunch up the field.
The race was split in half by a lap-25 halfway break, where the entire field came to pit road with three minutes to work on their cars. While most of the field elected to change at least a right rear tire, Larson and Silva opted not to change any tires at all.
“I’m not sure, I think our tires just looked good,” Larson said. “You know there’s really no reason to change if they’re not damaged or…
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