ABBOTTSTOWN, Pa. — Kyle Larson added another lofty payday to his impressive season Saturday night at Lincoln Speedway, as he led all 40 laps from the pole to win the Dirt Classic and $20,000.
It’s Larson’s 39th win of the season, 30th in the winged sprint car with Paul Silva, and 14th with the Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions. He scored a 3.165-second triumph over Aaron Reutzel. It’s also Larson’s third victory in four days, capping off a week that had victories Wednesday at Lincoln and Thursday at BAPS Motor Speedway.
“Momentum, rhythm, confidence, all of that, it’s important no matter what you do,” Larson said. “Whenever you can string together good runs, it makes it easier to carry it on. … We’ve just been fortunate to have a lot of good runs and put us in position to start up front to get wins.”
Larson started his victory march fourth-quickest in flight two of qualifying with a lap of 13.605 seconds, just .060 off Reutzel’s quick mark.
Fifth-three cars competed in Saturday’s event, which used a passing points format with double heats. And while time trials were included in the points system, Larson separated himself in his heats.
In his first heat, Larson raced from fourth to a 3.4-second win over Reutzel. But the second round of heats is where he exuded his car’s capabilities. Larson raced from seventh to second in just one lap and clinched the pole with a one-second victory over Brandon Rahmer.
“That second heat race was a lot of fun,” Larson said. “My car felt really good. That was probably the best I’ve felt here at Lincoln and not had to lean on anything.”
In the feature, Larson built a straightaway lead four laps in, largely due to Rico Abreu getting in the wall in turns three and four. By lap 10, Anthony Macri had moved to second, 1.7 seconds behind, as Larson caught traffic.
Larson’s lead shrunk to less than a second by the time he picked off his first lapped car on lap 14, and Macri appeared to be on the move. But much like a previous 40-lap race with double heats earlier this year, the leaders stayed stagnant and ran at equal pace to those on the cusp of being lapped.
“I couldn’t get by anybody,” Larson said. “I was getting a little nervous but never saw anybody’s nose.”
Larson’s lead ballooned to 2.4 seconds at the halfway point, as one lapped car remained between him and Macri. The first of three cautions to end the final 15 laps flew for Danny Dietrich, who had raced from 24th to 14th before spinning.
Two more stoppages occurred for Chad Trout with 10 laps to go and another for Dietrich and Paul McMahan with six to go, playing into the hands of Larson.
“When we started getting the cautions, that really worked for me,” Larson said. “I could kind of run hard for a couple laps and settle in.”
At that point, Larson’s only concern was missing the bottom, but he never bobbled and rolled to yet another champagne-doused wing dance.
“My car was just good,” Larson said. “Obviously you know what you’re doing, because you’re winning. But it’s hard [to reflect] when we race so often, to really take a second to soak in what you’re doing because you’re always thinking about the next race. When we get two weekends off in a row, then you can appreciate what you’ve done. But we still have a lot of racing left. We look forward to hopefully winning a lot more.”
Brent Marks finished third from 10th. Abreu settled for fourth and Macri slipped to fifth. Brock Zearfoss, Cory Eliason, Kyle Moody, Ian Madsen, and Kerry Madsen rounded out the top 10.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 57-Kyle Larson [1]; 2. 87-Aaron Reutzel [5]; 3. 5-Brent Marks [10]; 4. 24-Rico Abreu [2]; 5. 39M-Anthony Macri [3]; 6. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [7]; 7. 26-Cory Eliason [11]; 8. 99M-Kyle Moody [9]; 9. 17-Ian Madsen [4]; 10. 2M-Kerry Madsen [18]; 11. 18-Gio Scelzi [6]; 12. 39-Justin Peck [8]; 13. 69K-Lance Dewease [16]; 14. 10X-Ryan Smith [13]; 15. 55K-Robbie Kendall [12]; 16. 87k-Alan Krimes [14]; 17. 14-Tony Stewart [22]; 18. 50-Chase Dietz [21]; 19. 21-Brian Brown [20]; 20. 51-Freddie Rahmer [19]; 21. 13-Paul McMahan [17]; 22. 48-Danny Dietrich [24]; 23. 1X-Chad Trout [15]; 24. 69-Tim Glatfelter [23]; 25. 59-Jim Siegel [26]; 26. 88-Brandon Rahmer [25] Lap Leaders: Kyle Larson (1-40)