You know that feeling, the one that you have when you’re watching one of the greats compete at a high level at their sport. The greatness of watching Michael Jordan glide through the air at impeccable ease, or Kobe Bryant making moves none of us can even dream of doing with a basketball, just to get enough separation to hit a jump shot over a falling defender. What about Peyton Manning skillfully dropping a perfect pass into a receivers hands where no space is given? Tiger Woods draining a long putt. I can go on.

It’s fun to watch.

That’s the feeling I get when I’m watching Kyle Larson race on dirt. The guy is just damn good. The maneuvers he makes on a dirt track look so effortless but you know it takes so much skill to pull it off.

Larson, made a costly mistake on Easter Night in April with using a derogatory word that should have never even been in his brain to use in the first place. He knows that. He knows the damage that he did. It cost him his NASCAR ride.

Now, he’s back tearing up dirt tracks around this country and will actually reside in Indiana for the next week taking part in Indiana Midget Week. The California native, won Tuesday night’s opening race of the 16th annual event at Paragon Speedway with a text book pass of race leader Tanner Thorson with four laps left to score his eighth straight USAC National Midget Series victory when he’s been on US soil. That streak dates back to the 2019 season in California, his homestate by the way, when he won at Placerville, Bakersfiled and Ventura. He then swept both nights of racing at the Gateway Dirt Nationals to close out the year in December.

In January, he scored a prelim night win in Tulsa then the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals later. Overall, he’s won six straight races over the last 14 days if you count World of Outlaws and All Star into the mix too.

I mean, the guy is just so talented on dirt. To score six IMW wins now, trailing only Bryan Clauson’s nine, that’s saying something. He now equals the amount of Midget wins overall (20) with AJ Foyt.

The last time Midgets race in Paragon? Larson wasn’t even born yet. He’s only seen the 3/8-mile track just once in his life and that was to watch a sprint car race years ago from the stands.

He only went out early in the evening to shatter the track record by qualifying with a lap of 14.813-seconds. The previous track record was held by Mel Kenyon for 35 years at 16.442 seconds.

Did I mention he was great at this?

Larson’s Midget had speed. He too had skill. Larson, marched from the sixth place starting spot in both his heat race as well as the 30 Lap feature and won each.

His teammate Gio Scelzi started on the pole and led the first 11 laps before Thorson passed him on Lap 10. Scelzi, would make a mistake and flip while running third when he flipped in Turn 2 in the closing laps.

That set up a late race shootout between Thorson and Larson, which Larson won out.

While rumors are starting to fly about Larson potentially getting a second shot in Cup next season, maybe nothing comes to fruition. After seeing what we’re seeing now with Larson on dirt, his calling may be to just race here. We all know this is what he wants to be doing anyways. He has said countless times that he wasn’t going to have an extensively long career in NASCAR as he wanted to retire from that discipline early and still be young enough and fit enough to win a World of Outlaws title. Also, his next NASCAR contract anyways was going to have a stipulation that he can still run dirt.

Why not just stay on dirt?

Yes, NASCAR has higher purses, bigger pay checks, a nicer livelihood and more fame, but Larson has been there done that now. While he’s rebuilding his reputation off track, he’s thriving on track. Why go back if he’s happy?

Thorson, would finish second while fellow NASCAR driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished third in leading a NOS Energy charge.

Larson’s teammate Chris Windom was fourth while Justin Grant rounded out the top five.

Defending Midget champion Tyler Courtney finished seventh but with Windom coming home fourth, the points advantage for him is down to one. Thorson, is third in points (369) 40 points back.

Logan Seavey won the hard charger award for coming from 22nd to finish eighth.

USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Tyler Courtney-409, 2-Chris Windom-408, 3-Tanner Thorson-369, 4-Buddy Kofoid-350, 5-Kevin Thomas Jr.-328, 6-Cannon McIntosh-312, 7-Andrew Layser-308, 8-Tanner Carrick-305, 9-Cole Bodine-283, 10-Daison Pursley-280.

INDIANA MIDGET WEEK POINTS: 1-Kyle Larson-83, 2-Tanner Thorson-75, 3-Ricky Stenhouse Jr.-71, 4-Justin Grant-66, 5-Chris Windom-65, 6-Tanner Carrick-65, 7-Tyler Courtney-60, 8-Buddy Kofoid-55, 9-Kevin Thomas Jr.-51, 10-Logan Seavey-50.

NEXT USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: June 17, 2020 – Gas City I-69 Speedway – Gas City, Indiana – Indiana Midget Week

Paragon Results With Starting Position In ()

1. Kyle Larson (6)
2. Tanner Thorson (2)
3. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (3)
4. Chris Windom (12)
5. Justin Grant (7)
6. Tanner Carrick (4)
7. Tyler Courtney (9)
8. Logan Seavey (22)
9. Buddy Kofoid (5)
10. Kevin Thomas Jr. (8)
11. Thomas Meseraull (21)
12. Rico Abreu (11)
13. Zach Daum (19)
14. Shane Golobic (15)
15. Jake Neuman (14)
16. Daison Pursley (20)
17. Cole Bodine (24)
18. Brady Bacon (13)
19. Noah Gass (17)
20. Gio Scelzi (1)
21. Andrew Layser (23)
22. Chase Johnson (16)
23. Steve Buckwalter (18)
24. Cannon McIntosh (10). NT