Kyle Larson earned his second Late Model win of 2021
The Castrol FloRacing Night in America Series headed for the Midwest to contest its third midweek event of the 2021 season at the Brownstown Speedway. At the end of a competitive and efficiently run night of racing, it was NASCAR Cup Series star Kyle Larson who came away from the Indiana track with the win in a race shown live by FloRacing.com. The Elk Grove, CA driver earned $10,000 for his efforts.
A total of 33 cars were signed in for competition.
Kyle Larson was fastest in Group A qualifying with a lap of 12.942 seconds around the quarter-mile clay oval to beat out Jonathan Davenport, Billy Moyer Jr., Brandon Sheppard and Hudson O’Neal.
Mike Marlar topped Group B time-trials with a time of 13.103 seconds beating out Ricky Thornton Jr., Josh Rice, Devin Moran and Boom Briggs.
Kyle Larson won the first heat race of the night ahead of Billy Moyer Jr., Tyler Erb, and Bobby Pierce while Brandon Sheppard drove his family-owned car to the win in the second preliminary by outrunning Jonathan Davenport, Kent Robinson, and Scott James.
Mike Marlar took the third heat over Josh Rice, Shelby Miles, and Keegan Cox just before Ricky Thornton Jr. defeated Devin Moran, Tanner English, and Devin Gilpin.
Hudson O’Neal took the first B-main ahead of Darrell Lanigan and Jared Bailey then David Webb bested Boom Briggs and Ryan King in the second and final B-main of the night.
At the start of the 40-lap feature it was Larson who bolted to the early lead with Marlar, Sheppard, Thornton and Rice in his wake. Thornton took third away from Sheppard on the second circuit but Sheppard immediately fought back and the two raced side-by-side for multiple laps as they worked behind the race leading duo.
By lap 5, Sheppard had emerged with the third position while Larson began slipping away from the pack. Further back, English and Rice went at it for fifth as the leaders began to encounter slower traffic.
A caution for spin by the top-10 running Rice on lap 9 reset the field. English jumped up to fourth on the restart then joined a fight with Marlar and Sheppard. Those three cars gained on Larson even as they battled for position within the top-5.
English came to second then moved in on Larson just before a yellow flag waved on lap 23 for the slowing car of Miles with Larson leading English, Sheppard, Marlar and Davenport.
On the restart, English moved underneath Larson and briefly grabbed the lead as the cars raced across the start/finish line. However, Larson powered back on the outside and regained the top spot on lap 24. At the same time, Davenport roared up to the third position.
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Larson slowly began to inch away from his pursuers as the feature ran without a caution following the lap 23 interruption. At the end, the NASCAR regular cruised under the checkered flag to score the victory in a car powered by an engine originally built by the late LeeRoy Rumley, who was co-owner of K&L Rumley Enterprises with son Kevin.
It was Larson’s second Late Model win of 2021 after he took the season-opener with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Florida’s All-Tech Raceway back in January.
Feature Finish: 1. Kyle Larson, 2. Tanner English, 3. Jonathan Davenport, 4. Brndon Sheppard, 5. Mike Marlar, 6. Tyler Erb, 7. Devin Moran, 8. Darrell Lanigan, 9. Kent Robinson, 10. Bobby Pierce, 11. Scott James, 12. Hudson O’Neal, 13. Boom Briggs, 14. Billy Moyer Jr., 15. Ryan King, 16. Ricky Thornton Jr., 17. Keegan Cox, 18. Shelby Miles, 19. David Webb, 20. Devin Gilpin, 21. Josh Rice, 22. Jared Bailey
