Lakeport, CA – After taking a week off to attend the Chili Bowl in Tulsa, Oklahoma
ParkerStore Outlaw Sprint Kart driver Kyle Larson captured his first win of 2006 at the
Lakeport Indoor Speedway, pacing the 500cc Open division field over the final nine laps.
Larson also competed in the 125/250cc division and recovered from a couple of early race
tangles to race back to fourth at the finish.
Larson struggled early in the day with his 250cc kart as he only qualified tenth of the 23
karts and then finished
second in his heat race. He lined his ParkerStore/Team FBR Motors/QRC Factory Kart tenth
in the14 kart field. After moving into ninth on the opening round contact in separate
incidents on laps five and six sent the 13 year old from Elk Grove, California back to
13th. Over the final 19 laps Larson fought his way back to a respectable fourth place
finish as Mikey Lovell got the win.
In the 500cc Open division Larson set fast time over the 24 entrants before advancing from
fourth to second in the trophy dash,
which gave Larson the outside front row starting slot on the 14 kart grid. Dash winner and polesitter Trevor Cristiani took
the lead at the start with Larson’s Grandpa George powered mount in hot pursuit. As
laps ticked off Larson tried several attempts to get by Cristiani but was repelled each
time. Finally, Larson made his winning move in turn two of lap 16 and he was able to open
a large lead that continued to expand to the lap 25 checkered.
At the end of the day Larson said, “It sure feels good to get my first win of the
year. But it was kind of unusual how both cars were at the start of the day. Each one had
our normal Red Bluff setup on them but the open was perfect right from the start while the
250 was just skating around. For the main my dad did some drastic changes to the kart and
they really helped. If I didn’t get shuffled back early in the race I think I could
have won it also. Red Bluff is off again next week and we’ll probably come back here
again next week. So maybe we can get both wins then.”
Race: January 21, 2006
Photos Courtesy of Jack Waterman
www.kylelarsonracing.com
