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Kyle Larson isn't having a good start to what should be one of his best weekends of the entire season. While he might be the favorite to win Sunday's Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, he will have to make his way through the entire field first. That's because he blew an engine in practice, necessitating an engine change, which carries a penalty of having to start from the back of the field.
“I don’t know what happened, but I finally looked down at my dash and saw that my engine was running really hot, so I pulled in,” Kyle Larson told Fox Sports 1 after climbing from his race car. “Not sure what’s wrong ... I know there’s some oil coming out of it.”
Kyle Larson has his work cut out
Unfortunately for Larson, this means he will have his work cut out for him during the heat races in order to earn a good qualifying spot for the main feature. Keep in mind that, unlike in the asphalt races, positions can't change under caution and each race is only 15 laps long, giving him very little time to work with.
Kyle Larson and the rest of the field will also have to deal with the possibility of overheating issues, which can happen quite often in dirt track races. Furthermore, rain is on the cards this weekend, and should the racing surface get too muddy, that's another variable the drivers will have to deal with.
While he has a lot of work ahead of him if he wants to make his way up through the field on Saturday and Sunday, it's not something Kyle Larson isn't used to, being a seasoned dirt-racing veteran who competes in various other racing series throughout the year outside of his NASCAR commitments.
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