Bristol Motor Speedway
Penalized Larson rips lip, WoO in rallying at Bristol
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt.com senior writer
Kyle Larson (6) pressures Jonathan Davenport (49). (jacynorgaardphotography.com)
BRISTOL, Tenn. (April 29) — Kyle Larson didn’t win Friday’s 30-lap Bristol Bash opener at Bristol Motor Speedway. But he certainly won over the crowd with his performance — and his postrace comments — in the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series-sanctioned event.
The reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion nearly pulled off a comeback for the ages, charging to the doorstep of a $25,000 victory from the 21st starting after forfeiting the outside pole because WoO officials ruled he had reported late to the race’s staging area, a decision officials staunchly defended over Larson's protests. | RaceWire
A blown right-rear tire that sent Larson into the turn-one wall on the final lap snuffed out his bid to overtake eventual winner Jonathan Davenport, but it only endeared him more to the spectators watching from the dirt-covered Bristol’s massive grandstand.
Larson, 29, of Elk Grove, Calif., received a huge roar of appreciation from the fans when he climbed out of his beat-up K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 in the pit area, prompting him to acknowledge the adulation with a wave of his hand. Then he turned them on again with a particularly feisty interview beamed over the track’s facility’s PA system and giant video boards.
“It would’ve been a lot easier if I didn’t have to come from the tail,” Larson, clearly agitated over the penalty he received, told a DIRTVision reporter. “I’m the only guy doing double duty here so there’s a lot of s--- I gotta get done to get my stuff ready.”
Barely pausing, Larson, who also competed in the evening’s World of Outlaws NOS Sprint Car action and felt his busy schedule contributed to him pushing the limits of the feature’s pre-staging requirement, went on to threw shade at WoO management by quipping “it’s no wonder that you got teams like Mark Richards and them pulling off the tour,” referring to the recent announcement that Richard’s stalwart WoO Rocket Chassis house car operation and driver Brandon Sheppard will run the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series for the remainder of the season.
“So I’m glad the Outlaws made a good decision there and I could put a show on for you fans,” Larson sarcastically added, drawing more noise from the stands. “Thank you crowd for coming out. Hopefully we can put on another show in this (sprint car).”
And with that Larson stalked off, ducking momentarily inside his Late Model car owner Kevin Rumley’s trailer before re-emerging to talk with Rumley, several fellow sprint car drivers awestruck by his charge and others. In an interview with DirtonDirt.com while standing amid this circle, he attempted to explain how a race he was set to start from the front row had been turned upside down.
“They said I was late (to staging),” Larson said, shaking his head in disgust. “I was putting tearoffs on my sprint car helmet — I’m the only guy doing double duty here, so obviously I got a lot of stuff I have to do, and (WoO officials) told me we had two minutes (to reach the feature field’s staging cone in the pit area on the inside of turn two) so I got in the car. Then they said I had 60 seconds to at least push out of my pit stall, so we did. My transmission was broke in the heat so I can’t start (the engine manually) and drive through the pits, so I gotta get pushed through the pits and obviously that takes time.
“They just …” he added, his voice trailing off. “Whatever. We put on a show. I’m just pissed off.”
Rumley offered further elaboration on the prerace situation. He said he texted WoO Late Model series director Casey Shuman in advance to inform him of the transmission problem that would require Larson to be pushed from his pit stall to the staging area, but he noted that the team’s positioning among the sprint car haulers on the front of the infield pits — pitting there rather than with the rest of the Late Models on the back side of the pits gave Larson easy access to his Paul Silva-owned sprint car — made it hard to hear WoO officials blow the 10-minute horn to line up for the feature. As a result, Rumley said it was late in the time countdown when they heard a horn and a scramble ensued.
“They said, ‘Just get it out here (onto pit road) and they’ll push it off,’ ” Rumley said. “So we got it out (of the pit stall) and (WoO official) Tyler (Bachman) was gonna push it off with the four-wheeler, but he never showed back up so they got a push truck. Then Kyle was like, ‘The push truck wants to push us out on the track here (on the frontstretch),’ and we said, ‘No, we gotta go over there (to the inside of turn two),’ so it was confusing.
“The push truck did push him over there (to the staging area), but Casey said we were late and put us to the rear, so I feel very deceived by him,” he continued, unhappy with the controversial turn of events. “They said they were gonna work with us all night (to help accommodate Larson racing in two divisions). The officials need to be more reasonable. They’re lucky to have this kid racing, so if they don’t want us they just need to tell us.”
Shuman, standing in the postrace technical inspection area, responded to Larson’s public comment linking the procedural ruling to the Rocket Chassis team’s departure as a WoO regular (“I’m gonna guess that’s not why Mark left the tour,” he said) and broke down the controversy from his angle.
“We have the 10-minute rule. We enforce it,” Shuman said. “There has been people in the past that have not got to where they need to be at the end of 10 minutes and they were penalized.
“I understand he’s doing double duty. If he was in that (sprint car) dash (run before the Late Model feature) then obviously we would probably give him a couple extra minutes, but he wasn’t in the dash.”
Shuman noted that Larson’s last action before the Late Model A-main came in the first sprint car heat, which WoO sprint race director Mike Hess later reported in a tweet ended around 8:05 p.m., about 35 minutes before the first Late Model 10-minute lineup horn was sounded.
“I went there (to Larson’s pit stall) with 60 seconds to go (in the 10-minute countdown) and I said, ‘You guys have 60 seconds,’ and they said, ‘We’re gonna need a push,’ ” Shuman recounted. “And there was a push truck right there waiting, and I said, ‘That’s fine. Get it out here and let’s go. You can put the helmet on in staging. You just gotta get past those cones (on the inside of turn two), so just get it out there and go.’
“So they pushed it out, the truck got behind them and I left. I went back to our trailer (parked on the inside of turn two near the lineup cone), and then I hear on the radio that they’re still sitting over there doing something to it. I don’t know what, but they hadn’t moved.
“I went back to our cones where we waited. I don’t know what other issues were going on with it, but there was a truck ready to push. If they would’ve got out there (on pit lane) and they didn’t have anything to push them, that’s a common sense thing that we’d give them some time. But there was a truck, so there was no reason for them not be there.
“I hate it. I don’t want to DQ anyone. This is two weeks in a row now (Sheppard was disqualified from a runner-up finish in April 23’s feature at Atomic Speedway in Alma, Ohio, for failing a deck-height measurement). We had to do it last week. But unfortunately rules are rules, and you gotta enforce ‘em. So we’ll move on.
“He did a great job,” he continued, acknowledging Larson’s memorable drive. “I mean, he put on a helluva show, and I’m sure the fans were excited about it. It would’ve been cool to see him win it from back there. Unfortunately, they just didn’t get to where they needed to be (before the feature). There’s 20 other guys who were in the heat races with him and got their stuff past that cone.”
Larson certainly lit up the Last Great Coliseum with his thrilling march through the pack. He announced his intention to contend despite the penalty as soon as the race began, vaulting past 10 cars in the first two laps.
“The whole field just ran the bottom and I was able to rip the top,” Larson matter-of-factly said. “I think I got to 10th on that first caution (on lap two). I knew I had a shot then.”
Larson was up to seventh when the feature’s second and final caution flag flew on lap 10. He needed eight more laps to overtake Kyle Hammer for fifth, but then he got comfortable in the lightning-fast half-mile oval’s outer reaches and sailed past Chris Madden for fourth on lap 20 and Kyle Bronson for third on lap 23. Two circuits later he was pushing Davenport for second with leader Ricky Weiss just a few lengths farther ahead.
No one else appeared capable of running the outside quite like Larson, who followed Davenport past Weiss on lap 27 and was in position to bid for the lead as the two-to-go signal was displayed.
“Guys could run, like, just off of it, or they could enter up there and turn across,” Larson said. “I was just really good at following (the outside lip). When we were here a couple weeks ago (for the April 1-2 XR Super Series doubleheader) that’s kind of how I ran. We didn’t get to run the second night because the throttle pedal fell off (before the feature started), but the first night I was running the top like that.”
Larson had his run at Davenport on lap 28 dulled by the leader’s higher entry into turn three, but Larson still had a shot as the white flag was thrown. His comeback story was dashed, however, by the blown right-rear tire entering turn one — perhaps it was blistered, but he wasn’t sure — that caused him to knock the rear deck out of his car and limp around the track to finish eighth.
“I don’t think (Davenport) knew I was there (in turn three heading to the white flag),” Larson said. “He was just running his line and I was trying to time my run and cross his dirty air without getting tight, but I got tight behind him. Then I went into one and a tire blew.
“It was a really good car. I just wish it would’ve all worked out.”
