KNOXVILLE — Kyle Larson was the class of the field all week at the 63rd NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals, and Saturday he capped it off with his third career win in sprint car racing’s biggest event. The Elk Grove, California driver earned $190,000 for his win aboard the Paul Silva #57. His wins the last two years have seen him lead all 50 laps.
Larson earned the pole position as high point driver for the week, and he led early over Daryn Pittman, Carson Macedo, Rico Abreu and Tyler Courtney. Anthony Macri entered the top five by lap four, and Logan Schuchart slowed to bring a caution on lap five.
Macri climbed to fourth when he passed Abreu on lap 7, as Gio Scelzi entered the top five. Scelzi found some speed on the low side, and passed Macri for fourth on lap nine. Larson was in lapped traffic on the sixteenth circuit, as Macedo passed Pittman for the runner-up position. Scelzi followed him into third on lap 18.
The event was stopped at the halfway point with an open red. Though any changes were allowed, owner and crew chief Paul Silva decided there would be no tire change on Larson’s entry despite several teams electing to do so. At that point, Larson led Macedo, Scelzi, Macri and Corey Day back to green.
On lap 27, Scelzi passed Macedo for second, and appeared to be reeling Larson slowly in. By lap 38, Larson was back in traffic, and his car worked well high, low and in the middle as he put several lapped cars between himself and Scelzi.
Larson’s final margin of victory was 3.8 seconds over Scelzi. Day charged to third, followed by Macedo and Macri. Brian Brown, Courtney, Scott Bogucki, Sheldon Haudenschild and Jacob Allen rounded out the top ten. Sawyer Phillips won the E main, Don Droud Jr. claimed the D main, Brenham Crouch took the C and Brad Sweet won the B main. Kaleb Johnson flipped in the B main, but was uninjured.
Gio Scelzi took home $1500 in the DGRD “Best Appearing Car” contest. Matt Juhl ($750) was second and Donny Schatz ($400) was third. The Jason Johnson Racing #41 team won the Avanti Windows & Doors “Best Appearing Crew” and $500. The Shark Racing #1s team was second ($250) and the Tony Stewart Racing #15 team was third ($150). Kyle Larson won the $2,000 SprintCarUnlimited Pole Award. Emerson Axsom was the Jetco Rookie of the Year ($1,000). The MPI Hard Charger was Corey Day, and Brian Brown was the week’s MPV Jesse Hockett “Mr. Sprint Car,” winning $6,500.
“It doesn’t get any bigger than the Knoxville Nationals,” said Larson in Victory Lane. “It feels great to lead back to back in 50 lappers from start to finish, because it’s the best sprint car drivers in the world behind me. They don’t make it easy. It was a tricky race there. Those lappers were just fast enough on the bottom and I felt like I was slowing myself down. I feel like I strung some good laps in at the end. We’ve been really bad this year, up until the last couple of weeks. The team works so hard, and all this goes to them. The tires (at the halfway point) looked brand new, so what’s the point in changing? We led the first 25, so why put on a new set and trick yourself? I felt better the second half.”
“I’m proud of this team,” said Scelzi. “I want to win this race more than anything in my life. You have to lose them before you can win them. I felt so good (on the bottom), I just didn’t want to go on the top because it kept getting bigger and bigger. I jumped off of it in four, and got to Kyle. I was better on the bottom in three and four, but he found his way and left me. My car was amazing. You don’t get these chances very often. You have to take advantage of them when you get them.”
“I feel like we had a really good car there,” said Day. “A caution in that last run would have helped I think. To run third here behind Kyle and Gio is awesome. You always want to win, but I have to give it up to them. We weren’t great on Wednesday night in the feature there, and we got our car better tonight. Hat’s off to my team. We’ve highly exceeded our expectations this year.”
