Kyle Larson’s relationship with the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals at Tulsa (Okla.) Expo Raceway is slowly becoming similar to Dale Earnhardt’s longtime tug-of-war with the Daytona 500.
Larson has come close to capturing the crown jewel of midget racing on numerous occasions, but the victory he covets most has eluded him for more than a decade.
He’s lost the Chili Bowl nearly every way there is to lose it. He started and finished on the podium in 2012, his first Chili Bowl with Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports. Since then, Larson has had feast-or-famine results in the annual January classic inside the Tulsa Expo Center.
Larson failed to finish the championship finale in 2013 and ’14, then came back with runs of seventh and fifth the next two years, as he watched teammate Rico Abreu celebrate in victory lane.
The 2017 Chili Bowl was rough enough for Larson, as he crashed while battling for the lead on his preliminary night and then stalled after avoiding a slow car in front of him in his C main on Saturday, but this past year’s event in Tulsa was arguably Larson’s most-heartbreaking experience yet.
After 40 laps of battling wheel to wheel with friend and rival Christopher Bell for the Chili Bowl crown, Larson’s No. 01 midget sputtered and slowed with a race-ending engine failure in the final laps. He was relegated to 19th in the final rundown, after it looked like he would finally get the monkey off his back and take home the famed Golden Driller trophy.
It wasn’t meant to be, however, and Larson enters this year’s race with renewed motivation and a resolve to put the heartbreak of 2018 behind him and focus forward this time around.
“Last year was definitely one that I feel like got away,” said Larson. “I’m young, but I’ve raced Chili Bowl 11 years now … and even though we’ve always been really fast, we’ve had some sort of bad luck or tough break every year.
“Being honest, 2018 really felt like the year I could win it,” he added. “I felt really confident, it was my dad’s car and everything felt like it was lining up … it just didn’t work out again. Now we’re coming back in 2019 to give it another go and, hopefully, someday I can finally win it.”
2018 was the year that everything was finally going right for Larson. He won his preliminary night feature and defeated Bell in the final round of the pole shuffle to earn the top starting spot for the main event.
“It was a fun Saturday with the pole shuffle and everything that led into the A main,” Larson recalled. “Bell and I had a good little battle there for a lap, on a track that was really one lane, and then after they reworked the track things changed up a bit and he ended up beating me to the top.”
Bell’s move up the track came on a lap-10 restart and Larson didn’t get the top spot back until the 26th revolution, when Bell slipped in traffic and gave Larson a lane with which to pounce.
It all went sour with 14 laps to go, however, an ending Bell later said “robbed” the fans in attendance of a thrilling finish and fight for the victory.
“When we caught traffic, usually he (Bell) doesn’t make any mistakes, but he made a slight misjudgment in traffic to where I was able to get by him and I thought maybe I was finally going to have it,” noted Larson. “I felt like I was setting a good pace out front … and then the engine just let go.
“You never really know if you’re going to win a race, but for sure, that’s the closest I’ve come to winning it in my career.”
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