This is what happens when you give one of the greatest race car drivers in the world three literal mulligans.
Think about it.
Kyle Larson won his preliminary feature on Monday and could have drawn 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 for the pole shuffle and lo and behold, he randomly selects the No. 1 seed, meaning that the worst he would start was outside front row. Larson defeated Landon Brooks in the final round and that was that.
“After how we qualified in Race of Champions, I knew my best shot was to draw a 1 or 2,” Larson said. “That would guarantee me a front two rows. Obviously, drawing a 1, I was very happy.”
Daison Pursley gave it a valiant effort but just wasn’t able to keep up with the Paul Silva 1K. Then Brenham Crouch spun right in front of Larson, who monster trucked over the right front but with no significant damage.
Pursley went after Larson again, this time forcing the multi-discipline ace into drilling the frontstretch wall and taking a banner down with him. Pursley was completing the pass just as the caution came out for the debris.
Isn’t Larson technically the reason for the caution?
That argument was made but not applied by the race director and Larson maintained control of the race. Pursley gave Larson a mega slider, couldn’t finish the pass, and that was that.
No one denies the talent or engineering prowess of the 1K but the narrative is that Larson was dang lucky on Saturday night at the Tulsa Expo too.
“Obviously, I caught some luck but maybe I ramped the wall,” said Larson in the press conference, and this is where he started to smirk,” with skill.”
That elicited a hearty laugh from the reporters in attendance.
“I’ve been told I’ve been lucky my whole career but you don’t win as often I do with luck all the time,” he added. “You have to put yourself in position to take advantage of luck.”
Which, hey, Larson won his preliminary night, guaranteeing him a top-5 starting spot and he did the rest from there. Pursley finished second in the Wednesday preliminary but went from the first pole dash round all the way to the penultimate round, where he ran out of fuel, starting third.
That was a break for Larson too necessary Pursley had heated up his tires, knew the optimal way around the track, but wasn’t able to carry it all the way through.
“When I pushed off, and saw that he wasn’t running, I said that’s great and that I have a shot at it now,” Larson said. “A lot went my way last night with my pill draw and then tonight.”
What can you do if you’re Pursley there?
“Unfortunately, you give Kyle the front row, and he’s going to be hard to beat,” Pursley said. “Didn’t get a shot at it (in the pole shuffle) because we ran out of fuel.
“I tried to pace Kyle for 40 laps. It was a very technical track where you’d make room in one corner, then give it back the next. It’s unfortunate. I have a lot of mixed emotions right now. I really wanted to win this one, but there’s nothing to hang your head out when you’re racing against the likes of Kyle Larson. … I thought we might have had the chance when the yellow came out due to the banner, but there’s so many woulda, coulda, shoulda’s that happen in this building, that’s what makes it so tough to win here.”
Kyle the Caution?
Conventional wisdom in racing is that the reason for the caution is sent to the rear of the field.
However, in the case of Larson ripping the banner off the frontstretch wall, you have to acknowledge that the advertising strip was loosely lying at the start finish line for three laps prior to being entirely stripped.
His peers largely had no interest in that denying Larson the win:
“I get the drama of it, but I say no. They put the banner at a place where we smash the wall at every night, right. It’s well known that we smash the straightaway wall here every race. This isn’t the first time they’ve been torn down. The straights are flatter than they’ve ever been so it’s conducive to hitting the frontstretch harder. You come off the cushion and the track flattens out so the car goes towards the wall so no, I don’t think he should be put to the back.”
-Logan Seavey
“I mean, he’s why the caution came out but I would say I ripped about four banners down on Thursday night. They didn’t come out for me so he can have it. We’ll go get him next year.”
-Ryan Bernal
The Larson Line
Ultimately, this feature was 40 laps of the ‘Larson Line,’ and a track that built a cushion right on the wall, where the eponymous driver loves to just slam a car off the wall.
Clay built up against the wall all race and once Larson saw Jonathan Beason move up there in front of him, he defaulted to his preferred line and Pursley wasn’t chasing that down.
“I feel like when you can run above the cushion like that, you make less mistakes,” Larson said. “I was happy the track was the way it was because when this place gets slick and it’s flat, and you’re sliding off the throttle to the curb, it’s so hard to run good laps.
“I felt very comfortable running the line I was running. I feel like I’ll make less mistakes with the track that way.”
Why didn’t that work for say two-time and defending winner Logan Seavey?
“The track just got trickier and trickier and that little ledge underneath that you had to go over got bigger and it got harder to slide through it,” Seavey said. “Going in, I was as confident as ever but I did know from early in the night, like they never tried to get it to curb up lower off the wall …
“When you get a nice, tricky cushion down on the flat a little bit, it makes it hard to run and then it brings that bottom back in. We just didn’t have that and that’s where we excelled in the past and last night.
“But that’s dirt racing. The track is going to be different every night. You have to adapt to the changes and we didn’t have a reason to think we were going to struggle on that, but we’d never seen it. So we went out and with what we thought was gonna work and, and it just wasn’t great.”
The track
There will be those, of course, who say the track was made ideal for Larson but that’s circumstantial. That was very much a ‘Larson Line’ track but that was just how it naturally built.
The track crew, led by Brad ‘Gravel’ Chandler and Steve Hahn generally don’t pull dirt off the wall during a race day.
That’s how the track built.
With that said, the push is on to revert back to 55 laps after a race week where the track did not take rubber at all. A combination of technical inspector Cody Cordell going after chemical tire soaking and no longer using a full sized push truck kept moisture in the track and prevented it from taking rubber.
Hahn and Gravel, when spoken to after the race, both express a desire to go back to 55 laps next year and that sentiment was well received in the pit area after the race.
“The track was great and it goes to show you what great tech will do,” says Tanner Thorson.
Shane Golobic especially wanted the extra 15 laps given how the race was shaping up for him at the end.
“Sign me up, yeah,” said Golobic. “I don’t know what it is. They’re saying the tires aren’t doped so it’s easier on the race track, and maybe that’s what it is, the track stayed slick. There’s not a lick of rubber anywhere.
“And honestly, if we can go 40 laps without it taking rubber, I think it creates great racing. Even if it lays rubber in spots, but the straightaways stay slick, that can be a good race too. If they can keep the track that slick and not take rubber, I would be all about 55 laps.”
Christopher Bell is indifferent.
“I don’t know,” Bell said. “I don’t think it matters. You had all the cream up front in this Saturday night race. Either way, I’m good with it.”
The rivalry
Saturday night was not another chapter in the story of Larson versus Bell in the Tulsa Expo, especially following their dramatic finish in the Non Wing Outlaw Tulsa Shootout two weeks prior, mostly as a result of Bell falling out of a lock-in on Thursday night’s preliminary.
“I mean…I don’t know…I just wasn’t good enough tonight,” Bell said. “And I wasn’t good enough on Thursday night. So that’s the bottom line. So it was tough for me to pass but I just wasn’t that good. And I felt like if you were good you would have been able to pass. Just didn’t have it. Didn’t have it.”
Bell finished 10th after starting 12th after winning his B feature to make the main event.
“I mean still even with that all being said, I won the B feature which was good,” Bell said. “Put myself in a fine position. But if you can’t come from 12 to win in 40 laps, you were just not good enough. I just didn’t have it.”
In winning the race, Larson tied Bell with three wins, which is only one behind Kevin Swindell and two behind Sammy Swindell. When asked about chasing the Swindells, Larson said he was more concerned about keeping up with Bell.
“I’m not as much concerned about the end number as I am doing a good job,” Larson said. “Hopefully, I can keep winning. It’s great to have three so I can be tied with Bell more than anything. That’s what I think about.”
He smiled.
“I would love to get to four to have something on him in this building. It’s cool. I’m glad to have been back here in this building this week to put in a full effort.”
When told what Larson said, Bell said, ‘that’s special,’ without knowing entirely what more to say.
Bell downplays the rivalry, wanting to not make it a more of a thing, but Larson actively acknowledges its to a certain degree.
Daison Dazzles
Larson had the loudest reception in the Tulsa Expo prior to the main event with Daison Pursley not that far behind in second.
While Larson was subject to a mix of cheers and boos, Pursley was serenaded with love by his home town following his best chance to win in his second start back in this building following a broken neck in 2021, and he gave that crowd a show.
One of his best friends, NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Jesse Love flew all the way over to Tulsa to cheer him on, and was almost in tears at the emotional expenditure of coming so close.
Point being, everyone loves Pursley and wanted to see him break through, and while winning would have been sweeter, the sentiment meant a lot.
“It brings joy and a different kind of confidence,” Pursley said. “Your body language and mindset. I love this building and to be an Oklahoma kid rolling through here. It was fun to put on a show in front of a packed house like this.
“This was my best Chili Bowl yet, even if last year (going from a D to fourth) was little more exciting, I find myself passing a lot of cars in this place, be it last year or the pole shuffle. I love this building and the people here and looking forward to keep coming back until I win one of those little golden guys.”
Rowdy’s Race
Kyle Busch went into his debut Chili Bowl Midget Nationals, expecting to at least start Championship Saturday from a B Main, and would have settled for a C Main. This was just his second start ever in a Midget following the Turkey Night Grand Prix in November at Ventura Speedway.
Busch started his Friday Chili Bowl preliminary night with a seventh to second heat race but tripped up in his heat and qualifier and ultimately started on the pole in F Main 1. He advanced into E Main 1 where he failed to advance.
The two-time Cup Series champion carried a smile on his face both days but the old competitive ‘Rowdy’ was out after his elimination, just a little bit.
“I am always pessimistic, glass half empty,” Busch said. “So it’s fine. It was good. It was definitely a learning experience. I just wanted to show a little bit better. I felt like my learning experience here in just 40 laps that I got running yesterday and today running against the curb was a lot. And understand that a little bit more and keep working at it.”
How did all of this match expectations?
“Close. Little less,” Busch said. “My crew asked me what I thought I could do or reach. I thought C main would be respectable. Didn’t reach that. But it all came to yesterday, the qualifier not going the way I needed the qualifier to go. That would have helped us put in probably the B today. And that would have been overachieving expectations. So messed up on all that. But can’t say enough about Al, Lucas Oil, Floracing. Everybody that helped us here in Midgets.”
Gibbs’ fun, recruits Gray
Ty Gibbs started from the pole in G Main 1, won that race, and then advanced to F Main 1, where he was eliminated by just one spot.
He finished sixth, needing to get to fifth from the back of the field. It was a solid debut.
This was also Gibbs’ second ever start, also entering Turkey Derby alongside Busch in November, and there was a significant experience gap. The three-year Cup Series driver had an infectious smile after every session this past week, but just wanted more track time.
“It’s just different,” said Gibbs, a lifelong pavement stock car racer. “The hard part is that you don’t have that many laps. I feel like halfway through the race, I’d figure out stuff to do and learn, but then I have, like, three laps to go and I’m sliding a guy for, like, 9th.”
He started to use that F word again.
“I’m having a lot of fun. I didn’t really have any expectations on where I wanted to be. And if I could put it all together, I’d be a lot better off than I am now — but that’s just part of learning. You only get to drive the car a few times a week, so this event really reminded me how much I love racing.”
Gibbs was cheered on all week by his friend, and teammate at Gibbs, Taylor Gray. Gibbs is now the listed owner of the Xfinity Series car that Gray will drive next season. Gray said he enjoyed the experience and was open to racing next year too.
Gibbs joked that since he was the car owner, he is going to hand out an exemption to allow Gray to race in the same way that JGR is now allowing all of their Cup drivers to race on dirt.
Gibbs’ mom, Heather, one of the top executives at the team responded with a laugh that ‘he has no privileges.’
Gray says he would ‘love to’ and that the cars look ‘super fun,’ even if seeing ‘guys get wadded up gives me second thoughts.’
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.