Larson lights up preliminary night with dominating win
Photo by PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Black
TULSA, OK -- Kyle Larson cruised to his fifth-career Preliminary Night Feature win in the Chili Bowl Nationals at the Tulsa Expo Center.
Larson shared the front row with polesitter Zach Daum and didn’t wait long to make his move. Larson slid his No. 01 Toyota past Daum’s No. 5d in Turn 3 for the lead after the first five laps.
Larson’s victory moved him to third on the all-time list of qualifying night winners behind Sammy Swindell and Cory Kruseman, who have seven victories each. More important, he and Daum are locked into the A-Main come Saturday.
“I was nervous starting on the outside of the front row,” Larson said. “I knew they had done a lot of track work there. I was worried that the bottom was going to be really, really good for the first couple of laps and I’d fall back to fourth or fifth. But it worked out to where I had pretty good grip and ran a few laps on the bottom.
“Then Zack started missing on the bottom of the corners, so I moved up and was able to get by him quickly and felt really good.”
Daum finished second, followed by Jonathan Beason, Michael Faccinto and Sam Hafertepe, Jr. While Daum was unable to regain the lead from Larson, he was able to gain the second transfer spot for Saturday. On a scale of one to 10, Daum said his relief level was a 15.
“That seems like typical here the last couple of years,” Daum said. “I was high point guy, and Kyle started second. I think we were probably good enough there to be set up for 55 laps (the length of Saturday’s A-Main) instead of 25. We were a little tight there, and I got better and better as the race went on.
“I started catching Kyle before that last caution. The curb just got so treacherous there… you had to watch it, and I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries.”
Two cautions bunched up the field, the first on Lap 15 when Kyle Jones spun while running 13th. Three laps later, Beason, who started 10th, passed Hafertepe, Jr., for third. On Lap 20, Larry Wight brought out the second yellow when his engine expired.
“Traffic was crazy, scary in front of us,” Larson added. “When that guy (Jones) spun in front of us, I thought it was going to be another Chili Bowl where I was going to have some bad luck. I’m thankful that that didn’t happen and we were able to get the win.
“My car felt pretty good. I didn’t run too hard throughout that whole race. I didn’t want to make any mistakes that would cost ourselves a top two. Locking in is very important. I was just happy to run a pretty clean race there. After the guys tweak on the cars, it will be even better.”
Daum hopes it’s not. He knows to contend in the feature, he’ll have to be stout enough to race against the Keith Kunz midgets.
Congratulations to Keith and Kyle,” Daum added. “They’re the benchmark over here, so we’re going to work on it on Saturday.
“If (Larson) had messed up, I would have thrown something at him… I figured I might spook him, but Kyle Larson’s too good to spook. But we’ll take it. We’re locked in, and that’s the main thing. We’ll do the pole shuffle or whatever we do on Friday and see where we can put it on Saturday.”
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