TULARE, Calif. — These days Kyle Hirst only runs a handful of races each year, but he looked like a full-time driver in his prime during Thursday’s Trophy Cup preliminary feature at Thunderbowl Raceway.
The co-owner of Tiner-Hirst Enterprise capped his evening with a third-place finish in the feature and emerged as the high-point man after opening night, an important position for a format that emphasizes points.
Hirst has won just about every major race in California except for the Trophy Cup, and if his performance Thursday night is any indicator, he might be the most motivated gasser in the pit area of 86 cars.
Helping his cause is the fact that, while he’s yet to win Trophy Cup, the Thunderbowl has treated Hirst very kindly over the years.
The Chico, Calif., native owns half a dozen Tulare victories with the California-based NARC Fujitsu General Sprint Cars. He’s won two features during Trophy Cup and finished among the top-three in points on three occasions.
“This is my playground,” Hirst said following Thursday’s action. “I love this place. I love coming here. I love everything about it.”
Hirst’s night began by timing in second quick in group B of qualifying. He then wheeled his No. 94 sprint car from sixth to second in his heat race.
In the feature, the entire field had a sense of urgency as, despite some pre-main event track work, hints of rubber were evident after it was laid down during the final B main. With the heightened need to move forward quickly, Hirst balanced aggression with patience, picking his spots and ultimately advancing from 10th to third in the 30-lap main event.
“In the feature, I was just taking it easy early,” Hirst explained. “You’ve got a full fuel load and they reworked the track a little bit, so I just wasn’t trying to get myself in trouble right out of the gate. Once I started feeling pretty good, I started getting up on it real good and threw a couple sliders.
“I slid (Tanner) Holmes and got in the back straightaway fence pretty good, so I saved that, pulled that off and then smoked the fence once in (turns) three and four,” Hirst continued. “That’s when I kind of saw it getting cleaned up, so I went and moved down and felt the rubber real good. I tried throwing a slider on (Tyler) Courtney, and he drove back around me, and then after that we had a couple to go, and I just knew I needed to save my tires.”
The night stood as a testament to both Hirst’s continued talents behind the wheel and crew chief Steven Tiner’s diligence in preparation with a lack of a notebook compared to much of the competition. Tiner was also tasked with ensuring Hirst’s teammate, Landon Brooks’ ride was ready to go.
“I had a great car,” Hirst said. “Steven put in a lot of effort this week on both of these cars. I felt great in them. We’ve only brought this thing here once, and I think that was actually the other (Brooks’) car. It’s cool to be here and have a lot of speed with a lot of good cars here. I’m having a blast. I love this place.”
Ultimately, Hirst wound up with 278 points for his efforts, an amount that should slot him toward the top heading into Saturday even if a few drivers put together major nights on Friday. So, does Hirst plan to take things easy during the final prelim?
“You can never take a night off,” Hirst said with a laugh.
The 34-year-old is having fun racing with friends but also very much focused on the task at hand – winning his first Trophy Cup.
The list of champions reads like a California sprint car Hall of Fame. Its prestige is unmatched on the West Coast. It’s brought the utmost emotion out of former winners as the realization sunk in that their name had been immortalized alongside those who won before them.
“Hopefully, we’re sitting pretty for Saturday,” Hirst said. “And then we’ll take a crack at it and try to wrap this thing up finally.”