Kyle Larson plays comeback kid to win Truck race at Eldora
Kyle Larson put on a quite a comeback show Wednesday night to win the Aspen Dental Eldora Dirt Derby at Eldora Speedway.
Larson spent 20 laps of the 150-lap event running one lap down to the leaders after blowing a tire on Lap 53 while leading.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular eventually worked his way back through the field to the front, then held off the rest of the field for the Camping World Truck Series victory.
"I love to be back here on dirt," said Larson, who did not race at Eldora in last year's Truck race at the half-mile track owned by fellow Sprint Cup driver Tony Stewart.
Larson led 48 laps in his one-off stint as driver the No. 24 GMS Racing Chevrolet, leading crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz to tell FOX Sports after the race: "It was such a pleasure to work with Kyle. He was great. This team has had an up-and-down season, but a win like this always helps."
Bobby Pierce, who finished second in this race a year ago, appeared to have the truck to beat for the majority of Wednesday's event.
Pierce led 102 of the first 118 laps, in fact, but knew he was in trouble on a restart with 31 to go. Pierce told his team over the radio that the clutch was going in his No. 63 truck and that he was stuck in fourth gear.
That made it next to impossible for Pierce to get up to speed on the ensuing restart, and Larson took advantage to jump back into the lead.
From there, first Larson hit the outside wall, briefly giving the lead back to Pierce. But Pierce overdrove into a turn and almost immediately hit the wall himself, transferring the lead back to Larson and, worse yet, giving himself a right-rear flat tire that ended his once-promising night.
"I didn't think it would be that slick. ... I thought I went in there a little too hot, but I thought the truck would stick a little bit more in the center," Pierce said. "It just kept sliding and sliding and sliding and I just thought, 'Oh, this isn't going to be good.' "
From there it was up to Larson to hold off defending race winner Christopher Bell, who got right on the back bumper of Larson's No. 24 truck when Larson missed a shift at one point in the closing laps. That was as close as Bell could get, however, and he ultimately finished second.
Rico Abreu, Jake Griffin and Tyler Reddick rounded out the top five.
It was Larson's second career win in the Truck Series in just his 12th start. He also won at Rockingham in 2013, the same year he finished second at Eldora.
Larson also could commiserate with what happened to Pierce, because in 2014 at Eldora he had been battling for the lead when he hit the wall late and was unable to finish the race, ultimately being scored in 26th at the track that is owned and operated by Stewart.
Larson said the slick track conditions definitely worked in his favor this time around, especially when his flat tire forced him to work his way back to the front from deep in the field.
"Tony had the track amazing," Larson said of Stewart. "I've been bugging Tony for three years to get some moisture in this track. He did ... and I just had a blast.
"This definitely means a lot, especially losing the way I did the two (previous) years I ran here.
