By T.J. Buffenbarger
(August 13, 2026) — The preliminary nights are in the history books for the 65th edition of the Knoxville Nationals. After Kyle Larson secured the high point position by winning the feature event, I have multiple thoughts on the night’s action.
• I realize that my opinion will be in the minority on this subject, but I do not have an issue with Kyle Larson competing in his Knoxville Nationals preliminary night without being able to return to the finale unless it rains enough in Richmond, Virginia or Knoxville, Iowa to postpone one of the two events to Sunday.
The biggest reason I have for being okay with Larson competing this week is because he drives for Paul Silva. Silva makes a living by owning a sprint car, which is a monumental task in this even with Silva having one of the greatest race car drivers of all time driving for him.
The Knoxville Nationals A-Main pays $15,000 just to start Saturday’s A-Main event and winning a preliminary feature is a $12,000 payday.
In 2017 when it appeared Chip Gannasi was not going to allow Larson to run the Knoxville Nationals finale before the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway, I casually asked Silva why they were there when Kyle might not be able to race on Saturday. His response explained that it paid well to win that preliminary night feature.
Another reason I do not take any issue with Larson competing this week is the guy loves sprint car racing. In the press conference on Saturday, he talked about how much he enjoys the sport. When he’s not driving a sprint car, he’s watching sprint car racing. To have one of the greatest race car drivers of our generation enjoy the sport of sprint car racing that much is a true gift for all of us that love sprint car racing.
The NASCAR schedule has evolved where moonlighting in sprint cars is more feasible than it used to be. Back in the days when Knoxville Nationals were live on TNN NASCAR had days of practice, qualifying, and testing besides the racing and drivers didn’t have enough free time, nor the permission, to drive sprint cars in their rare off time. Now with NASCAR condensing their schedules gives Larson more options than a lot of other people had before him to compete in other series.
We’ve been spoiled by Larson who takes time out of his schedule to continue to race sprint cars on a regular basis. Larson is smart about picking and choosing his moments to do so generally at nicer facilities, but before Tony Stewart started racing more winged 410 sprint cars when he drove for his own NASCAR team having someone in NASCAR compete in a random sprint car race on a Wednesday night would not happen. The NASCAR teams were not willing to take that risk.
I’m thankful that Rick Hendrick has let Kyle compete regularly with us. He sees the benefits from keeping Larson active in sprint car racing.
A lot of the cheers for Larson have turned to boos lately. They are the same boos I’ve heard for Steve Kinser, Danny Lasoski, and Donny Schatz. The other thing Larson has in common with all those drivers is at the end of the night the driver receiving the boos also had the longest line in the pit area to greet fans after the races were over.
I’ve always looked at this as a backhanded compliment of sorts that fans are tired of seeing the same driver win. With Larson though and the effort he’s taken to compete in sprint car racing, something he doesn’t realistically have to do, I think we can cut him some slack when he wins and in the case of not being able to make it back to Iowa on Saturday.
• I can’t help but imagine how frustrating it must be for Garet Williamson to be so close to his first career World of Outlaws feature victory and have it snatched away in the closing stages of the main event.
At the Kings Royal I thought Williamson was going to be wearing that crown until Anthony Macri was able to get by him. Thursday night when the spotlight was once again its brightest on the sport, Williamson did an admirable job holding Larson and other competitors at bay, only to have Larson drive by him during the closing stages of that main event.
Even Larson mentioned in the post-race press conference that Williamson’s team might be the most improved in all of 410 sprint car racing this year, which is an assessment I would agree with.
To his credit Williamson has taken the disappointments in stride when I’ve had to interact with him afterwards. That level of maturity is a big reason why Wiliamson’s trajectory has been going up since he jumped on the Outlaw tour full time. I’m fairly certain Williamson will collect that first victory before the season closes.
• After the preliminary nights for the 65th edition of the Knoxville Nationals were completely my opinion is that the Knoxville Nationals format with the heat race inversions and points available for qualifying is not broken.
Every year there are a few voices that try to get amplified that talk about how the format no longer works because of the quality of the drivers and equipment in the sport. I still feel this is a precondition notion because of the lack of inversions in the regional and national touring series around the country.
Events like the Knoxville Nationals and Kings Royal are not supposed to be easy to win. If you want to see the fastest car in qualifying win the prize, maybe something like going to the Bonneville Salt Flats to see cars set land speed records might be more your speed.
The Knoxville Nationals format forces drivers to qualify AND race well. I realize this takeaway matches one from last year, but I’m growing tired of his relentless argument coming from a handful of people.
If any adjustment needs to be made to the Knoxville Nationals format, it’s making the A-Main starting field on Saturday 28 cars instead of 24 (Another takeaway I had after last year’s Knoxville Nationals finale).
My argument for this is before Friday night locked four drivers directly into the A-Main event on Saturday, the top 20 in points were locked into the A-Main through the preliminary nights.
Increasing the Saturday A-Main to 28 starts would allow 20 cars to once again lock in through points and give drivers a slightly larger margin of error to fight their way through the preliminary program.
It’s easy to say this when I’m not the one paying an additional $60,000 for more A-Main starters, but I feel would be a good olive branch for those that do feel the format is broken, which it’s not.