Kyle Larson finished sixth in the Cook-Out 400 at Richmond Raceway Saturday night, and instead of waiting around for pit road interviews, he sprinted to the plane.
The defending NASCAR Cup Series Champion made the decision earlier this week to qualify the Paul Silva No. 57 410 sprint car for the 65th Running of the NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals even though he knew that, as scheduled, the Saturday night feature would run at the same time as his mandatory NASCAR Cup Series Race. Larson, unsurprisingly, put the No. 57 on pole.
As luck would have it, Knoxville, Iowa, would be the dumping grounds for some late summer storms, pushing Friday’s feature into Saturday and then Saturday’s run of events later and later into the weekend. This was the break that Larson needed to make the schedule work.
The Athletic’s Jordan Biachi reported on X that the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team came up with a Hail Mary plan pre-race to get Larson to the Knoxville Nationals as soon as his day was finished in Richmond, if there was a mathematical chance of him making it in time to start the A-Main.
The Cup Series race ended at 10:17 local time, and Larson was then sprinting away from the No. 5 trailer. Forty minutes later, Larson’s jet had taken off from Richmond Airport with thousands of invested motorsports fans tracking it online, sending it to number one on Flighttrader24.com tracking list.
As Larson’s plane took off, Johnny Gibson, the voice of the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, was announcing to fans at the track and Dirtvision that the track was about 30 minutes away from the first hot laps of the evening. By the time the D-Main went out for their hot laps, Larson was in Ohio airspace.
As the C-Main ran its hot laps, Larson passed over Indianapolis, the hub of his last brush with a motorsports double.
In 2024, Larson landed in hot water when he attempted to run the Indianapolis 500-Charlotte 600 Memorial Day Weekend Double, where bad weather delays in Indianapolis and Charlotte meant that Larson would be left with zero laps run in the Coke-600, putting his NASCAR points in jeopardy as he had to ask for a waiver for missing a points race.
Just like now, fans watched a tiny yellow plane on a monitor to see if Larson stood a chance of making it in time following an early crash out of the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500.
For missing the start of the race, Larson had to ask NASCAR for a waiver for playoff eligibility, which they ended up being hesitant to grant.
Undeterred, Larson tried again in 2025 with similarly bad luck before ultimately deciding that the Double wasn’t ‘worth it.’
This double, it seems, is worth it to Larson, as he attempts to grab his fourth title (2021, 2023, 2024) in sprint car racing’s “Granddaddy of Them All.”
The DirtVision crew sent members of their team to Pella Airport to see Larson arrive; they report that the Marion County Sheriff’s is escorting him the 20 miles from Pella to Knoxville Raceway.
Larson landed at Pella Airport at 11:55 PM Central, 1 hour and 58 minutes after taking off in Richmond. At the same time, the C-Main went back to green with nine laps to go at Knoxville Raceway. Ryan Timms, the defending champion, won the C-Main in his own race through the qualifiers to make the A-Main.
Flighttracker24.com
Larson entered the raceway at 12:16 AM through the back gate, crossing the track escorted in the front of a Chevrolet Traverse to make it into the pits just after hot laps were completed for the Last Chance Showdown and A-Main drivers.
Dirtvision’s Connor Wade briefly caught up with the equally surprised Larson, who had no idea that he really had a chance to make it until his crew chief Cliff Daniels let him know halfway through the Richmond race.
“I never really knew I was coming,” Larson said. “Cliff gave me a heads up midway through the race, and I was shocked because honestly I was thinking about hopefully there’d be enough time when the race is over to watch the main event. So here we are.”
Larson missed his chance for Hot Laps and started the race cold. It didn’t matter. By the halfway open red fuel stop, Larson had lapped half the field and led Kasey Kahne by over five seconds. 24 laps later, he crossed under the checkered flag to become a four-time Knoxville National champion.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.