Dirt racing always has a special place in my heart for reigning cup series champion Kyle Larson and he didn’t think twice about co-hosting Tennessee’s Volunteer Speedway Late Model Dirt racing the ahead of the Next-Gen cars Bristol Dirt race debut.
He went onto the track alongside his Hendrick Motorsport teammate William Byron, who was driving the Late model first time in his career on dirt. William Byron’s debut wasn’t always the prettiest as he spun more than once throughout the action-packed Thursday night and was only able to finish P24 in a 25-driver race.
Kyle Larson finished P4 in the race below winner Mike Marlar, Jimmy Owens at P2, and Scott Bloomquist at P3. The 50 laps 4/10-mile dirt track race attracted t’s the biggest crowd in over 20 years, thanks to the HMS derivers.
Find out what William Byron has to say about hit late model dirt race experience
William Byron acknowledged that he could have had a chance at winning if he raced the late-model on the asphalt track but in the dirt, it’s an entirely different environment. He went on to say hopefully he can do a lot more of behind the scene learning but added that he prefers to do it under less pressure. William Byron added that it was a definitely a good and fun experience for him.
“I could go do asphalt Late Model races and compete for wins, and that’s a little bit different than this. This was more just to put me in a different environment and see what happens. So, hopefully, I can do a lot more of it and kind of learn behind the scenes, not learn under pressure so much. But it was definitely good to just get some experience around these guys and kind of know what I have to build towards. Yeah, it was cool,” William Byron said.
Reacting to his teammate’s first late model dirt outing reigning cup series champion Kyle Larson acknowledged the efforts put in by William Byron as he stepped out of his comfort zone. He said that it was cool for Byron to do something way different than what he grew up doing.
“It was cool for him to show up and do it. Obviously, way different than what he grew up doing. So yeah, neat that he was willing to kind of step way out of his comfort zone and try something really different,” Kyle Larson said.
