TULSA, Okla. – Kyle Larson led every lap of the 35th Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals on Saturday night to earn his second-straight victory in the annual midget racing extravaganza inside the Tulsa Expo Center.

Larson, wheeling his own No. 01 midget, took the lead on the opening lap of the 55-lap feature and never gave it up despite multiple challenges from polesitter Justin Grant and, late in the feature, Christopher Bell.

“I had to work way harder for that one,” Larson said after emerging from his car. “I could feel Grant pressuring me pretty much the whole race. There in the middle portions the track really curved up. I wasn’t bad. Then there at the end it got a massive curve and I was trying to run hard and when I would run hard I’d slam it (the cushion). If I ran easy I’d get tight against it. Once I saw Bell got to second I knew I had to try to be smarter and not make massive mistakes and let him get by.

“I made a lot of massive mistakes during that race.”

Larson first had to hold off Grant, who made multiple attempts to challenge Larson early on in the feature. As the laps clicked off, Larson continued to lead but made the first of two major mistakes on lap 45 when he clipped the cushion and lost all his momentum.

Grant was unable to challenge Larson because he found himself battling Bell for the runner-up position, a position Bell soon took. Larson found the cushion again with six laps left and Bell was suddenly right behind Larson, but a caution with four laps left prevented Bell from making a move.

When the green waved again Bell did everything he could to challenge Larson, but entering turn three with two laps left Bell drifted up the track and clipped the cushion, sending him into a wild flip. Bell was uninjured, but his race was over.

That left Larson at the front of the field with Grant behind him. Grant tried a big slider on the restart, but ended up backing up the field to bring out another caution as Tyler Courtney flipped. Larson gave him no such opportunity on the final restart, quickly pulling away to win the Chili Bowl Nationals for the second time.

The finish:

Kyle Larson, Justin Grant, Tanner Thorson, Cannon McIntosh, Daryn Pittman, Chris Windom, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Brad Sweet, Spencer Bayston, Logan Seavey, Cole Bodine, Alex Bright, Colby Copeland, Christopher Bell, Tyler Courtney, Rico Abreu, Blake Hahn, Kyle Cummins, Buddy Kofoid, Chase Johnson, Thomas Meseraull, Brady Bacon, Jake Neuman, Joe B. Miller.

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