It took four years to break out of a tie with Billy Boat and Christopher Bell for the second-most wins of the Turkey Night Grand Prix at Ventura (California) Raceway, but after overcoming a starting position of 10th, Kyle Larson won the prestigious midget race for the fourth time. He now sets his sights on Ron Shuman’s record of eight.
Larson’s previous Turkey Night wins came in 2012, 2016 and 2019.
“I’m happy to get another Turkey Night win,” Larson said at USACRacing.com. “We’re second on the all-time win list now, which is cool. Hopefully we can catch up someday and maybe be leading this thing. This is such a historic race with it being the 82nd running, which is incredible. it’s been a good event for us, and we’ve always run really well here.”
In 11 career starts in this race since debuting in 2011, Larson has never finished worse than fourth.
Larson came up one position shy of winning this race last year when he was tracked down and passed by Justin Grant, who also started the night deep in the field in 13th.
It took only 27 trips around the 1/5-mile oval for Larson to reach the lead in this edition. Once there, he never relinquished it.
Larson prevailed in a three-car battle for the lead as Logan Seavey and Ryan Timms exchanged the top spot on laps 25 and 26. During the battle, Timms became stalled on the cushion to bring out the caution. Timms did not recover and finished 23rd.
🏁 @KyleLarsonRacin battles to the front and WINS the 2023 USAC Turkey Night Grand Prix! @USACNation | @ventura_raceway
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) November 26, 2023
📺 https://t.co/blmXnZZSjn pic.twitter.com/CV6GzH3ucY
On the ensuing restart, Larson executed a slider on Seavey in Turn 3 for the lead.
“You just had to make good decisions,” Larson said. “We were all kind of searching for the right lane at the right time. Thankfully, I put together some good laps around the bottom and got clear to the top and got rolling.
“The top of one and two was getting really wide around there and I figured Logan was running up there, so he was probably going to commit to that. I felt like if I could just poke the bottom, I could get a run and get by. It all worked out really well.”
As attrition accumulated and the track rubbered up, Larson was in the best position to take advantage of the difficult conditions and held the lead for the final 72 laps.
“All the Turkey Night trophies I have from Ventura are probably some of the coolest trophies I have in my collection,” Larson said. “They get better and better every year and it’s probably the main reason why I come and do this race – just to come and win these awesome trophies. I need to get a little better at qualifying because I want to win some of those (trophies) too.”
This year’s trophy was a 1/4-scale replica of the JC Agajanian owned car that Parnelli Jones drove to victory at the Indianapolis 500 in 1963, which was handmade by Ventura Raceway promoter Jim Naylor.
Corey Day and Carson Macedo followed Larson through the field, starting 12th and 11th respectively. Ultimately Larson’s margin of victory was only 0.224 seconds to Day.
“I grew up coming to this race as a kid where we made it a vacation and came down here to hang out at the beach and watch some racing,” Day said. “It’s so cool to run it for the first time and then to run second and be Rookie of the Race.
“At the beginning, the middle slicked off really fast, then everybody kind of didn’t know where to be. I knew there was rubber under what they watered, so I was just kind of waiting on it and it came in fast. I was able to find it first, so that was good, but Kyle, he’s got way too many laps to not to know when it’s going to come in. When he moved down, that was kind of it.”
Macedo flipped after the checkered flag waved with him in third.
“That was a little embarrassing there,” Macedo said. “I didn’t have much right rear tire left and I got outside the rubber and gassed it up a little bit just to have fun I guess, and it never stopped sliding. I ended up plowing the cushion and turned it over.
“It was fun, though. I just wish it was a little bit different with it taking rubber and all. It wasn’t that ideal. Before that, the race was epic, and I was having a ton of fun and it was fun battling with a lot of good drivers.”
FEATURE: (98 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kyle Larson (10), 2. Corey Day (12), 3. Carson Macedo (11), 4. Bryant Wiedeman (4), 5. Jacob Denney (17), 6. Emerson Axsom (23), 7. Buddy Kofoid (16), 8. Logan Seavey (2), 9. Jesse Love (21), 10. Cade Lewis (26), 11. Hayden Reinbold (24), 12. Jake Andreotti (25), 13. Gavin Miller (19), 14. Daison Pursley (9), 15. Mariah Ede (7), 16. Kale Drake (3), 17. Chase McDermand (6), 18. Jade Avedisian (22), 19. Spencer Bayston (8), 20. Justin Grant (5), 21. Cannon McIntosh (15), 22. Michael Faccinto (13), 23. Ryan Timms (1), 24. Taylor Reimer (14), 25. Mitchel Moles (18), 26. Brody Fuson (20).
More Dirt Track Racing
World of Outlaws adds $100,000-to-win race at Huset’s
High Limit Racing expands in 2024, creates second national sprint series
Bobby Pierce wins Outlaws Late Model title in first try
Brad Sweet seals fifth Outlaws Sprints title with a win
A Tale of Two Drivers: Brad Sweet, David Gravel
High Limit Sprint Car Series acquires ASCoC
Devil’s Bowl rages against the dying of its lights
Jade Avedisian makes history as first female national midget champ
Rico Abreu wins Lincoln Park but Kyle Larson takes the title
ASCoC champion Zeb Wise gets first WoO Sprints victory
