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BECHTELSVILLE - Kyle Larson raced by Brent Marks following a restart and went on to win the Hodnett Cup and $10,000 Tuesday night at Grandview Speedway in the fifth race of Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speedweek.
For Larson, driving the Paul Silva No. 57, it was his fourth win in his last five starts at Grandview. It was his ninth career win in Speedweek competition.
"I've definitely had to earn every one of them," Larson said. "I felt good at the beginning. Through the middle portions, I wasn't good at all. I could hear Danny (Dietrich), I could see him, I could feel him
on my right rear."
Larson was trying to hold off Dietrich as Speedweek point leader Marks led the 35-lap main event with nine laps to go. Marks started second and had led the entire race up to this point. Larson started fifth and Dietrich had raced forward from the 12th starting spot.
However, a yellow flag slowed the race and gave Larson a shot and he took full advantage of it.
"So many times, I've seen this place on the restarts it's hard for the top to get going," Larson said. "I knew Brent was going to go up there because he had been making it work all race long. He surprised me and went to the bottom of three and four, but got into the water, and that spun him to the left and I was able to get the grip I needed to slide him. My car felt really good around the bottom. It was a lot of fun. I love coming to Grandview. We love the Pennsylvania fans and it's cool to get a win out here.
Larson, of Elk Grove, Calif., got a great run around the top on the restart and when Marks slipped up on the bottom, he pounced as they raced into turn one. Larson completed the slider moving by Marks and into the lead.
"I had a really good last little stretch there," Larson said.
Larson controlled the final laps scoring the win over Marks and Dietrich.
"That was pretty disappointing to lose that at the end," Marks said. "I started getting really tight and couldn't pick the right line. I went to the bottom to see if that was any better for me, but I caught the water off of four and it got me messed up. We had a really good car all night. Generally, I struggle really bad here, I'm really proud of our second place finish tonight."
"We got rolling really good there in the middle of that race," Dietrich said. "I didn't want to see that caution. I felt like I was a lap away from getting around Kyle and it seemed like we were both catching Brent, but that's part of racing. We weren't quite as good after that and Kyle really got up on the wheel. His car fired off really good. Maybe I used my stuff up a little bit in the middle stages of the race and smoked the tires. That's part of it. Third is better than fourth."
Anthony Macri and Kyle Moody completed the top five. Rico Abreu, Christopher Bell, Lynton Jeffrey, Ryan Taylor and Justin Peck rounded out the top 10.
Marks set fast time over the 27-car field with a lap of 11.888 seconds. Macri, Abreu, and Larson won the heat races. Taylor won the B-main.
Marks leads the Speedweek point standings headed to Port Royal Speedway tonight and into the second half of the 10-race week. Dietrich is second in points (-88 unofficial).