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Larson Excels In USAC Midget Action In Florida

New Smyrna, Fla. – Racing phenom Kyle Larson once again displayed his talents as he handily won the USAC National Midget race at the New Smyrna Speedway on Sunday evening. The California whiz drove one of the four RW Motorsports entries.

    Race winner Kyle Larson flanked by Tracy Hines and Darren Hagen. [Joe Jennings Photo]


The race marked USAC’s return to Florida for the first since performing in Orlando eight years ago. And the midgets were making their debut on the fast New Smyrna half-mile oval. Eighteen USAC teams were on hand for a bone-chilling night of racing as the temperature had dipped into the 30s by race time.

Starting third in the feature, Larson trailed first Bobby Santos and then Caleb Armstrong in the early going before blasting past Armstrong on a restart one-third way through the 30-lap feature. Thereafter, Larson was not challenged and he peerlessly drove the RW Motorsports/Rotondo Weirich Beast Fontana to victory.

Said the victor, “The restart was really good and the engine took off great. I was able to get by Caleb before we got to the line just because the engine took off. And that was pretty much the race. After that, I knew Caleb was better for a while, so I moved down and tried to let him go around me but he got into my left rear and spun out. I got a huge break there and held on to the lead from there.”

A year ago at New Smyrna, Larson made his stock-car debut and won the race. Having raced there previously worked to Larson’s advantage Sunday night.

Larson has a busy schedule while in Florida, racing to second place in the ARCA event at the Daytona International Speedway, and he will also compete in two short-track events at DIS along with the upcoming Nationwide Series race next Saturday.

Darren Hagen took the runner-up spot with Tracy Hines in third.

Tanner Swanson finished fourth ahead of Dalton and Caleb Armstrong. Christopher Bell, Kyle O’Gara, Cole Carter and Bobby Santos rounded out the top-10.

A revised format for USAC’s paved midget events greeted the participants. Two “scrambles” followed qualifications, with positions in the scrambles determining the feature starting order. Scramble winners were Santos and Caleb Armstrong.

Larson took fast-qualifying honors with a time of 16.726 seconds.

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