In 2016, the sprint car community lost one of their best drivers and Hall of Fame inductee, Bryan Clauson. As a highly accomplished driver in the series, Clauson was the winner of multiple USAC midget and sprint car competitions. He was also a close friend of Kyle Larson, who is a serious sprint car racing enthusiast himself. In his memory, Larson made a special announcement, honoring the legacy of his late friend.

Kyle Larson’s sprint racing championship, High Limits Racing, is going to visit Kokomo Speedway on May 8 and 9. Larson has decided to name the race after his late friend Bryan Clauson. In a heartfelt social media post, he said, “Being able to honor my late friend Bryan Clauson means a great deal to me. This weekend @HighLimitRacing returns to one of Bryan’s favorite tracks, @kokomospeedway, for the Bryan Clauson Hero Classic.”

“We’re proud to partner with @Driven2Save whose platform has impacted countless lives. If you’re not already a donor, I encourage you to visit http://Driven2SaveLives.org to learn more and consider making a difference.”

Clauson ended up losing his life in an accident during a midget car racing event during the Belleville Midget Nationals, an event he had won three times and was the defending winner of that year. His car struck the guardrails and stopped on the track. After being hit by Ryan Greth between turns 3 and 4, Clauson spent the next day fighting for his life before his family announced that he had passed away.

Speaking of his death, Tony Stewart would later comment, “It sucks when it’s anybody in racing. It’s hard when you lose them, but it’s even worse when they’re somebody as close to you as Bryan was.”

Clauson was particularly close to NASCAR drivers Tony Stewart, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Kyle Larson. They had a shared history of competing against each other in major dirt racing events. Larson would also dedicate his breakthrough victory in 2016 to his deceased friend Clauson at the Michigan International Speedway.

The victory that couldn’t have been sweeter

“I was teary-eyed that whole last few laps, because I could just feel it,” an emotional Kyle Larson said. “It was finally going to be it. This one is for the Clauson family. We really miss Bryan. We’re going to miss him. We parked it for him, so that’s really cool.

“We had a lot of work to do for that first third of the race and got it done. Thanks to (sponsor) Target. Thanks to everyone on this team. (Crew chief) Chad (Johnston) and the pit crew and everybody. We messed up that last stop, but we made it back.” It was one of Larson’s most special moments: his first NASCAR Cup Series victory after 99 races. Moreover, it also broke a 99-race winless streak for his team, Chip Ganassi Racing.

But, in this case, the significance of victory was not alleviated by his lack of wins. It was alleviated by the near-miss that one of his fellow competitors and sprint car racing colleagues had had the previous week.

Only a week before, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. came close to doing the same thing at the Bristol Motor Speedway. He was already sporting a special pink paint scheme on his helmet in memory of his friend, Clauson. With a bittersweet runner-up finish, it was clear in his post-race interview that he wanted to be the first one to “park it” in the victory lane for his late friend.

“It was a really good team effort,” Stenhouse said. “I really wanted to park it in victory lane for Bryan and his family, but we just came up one spot short. I thought we were matching the 4-car lap for lap there at the end; just starting sixth, he kind of stretched it out on me, and I wasn’t able to really make a run at it.”

What he set out to do was ultimately conquered by Larson himself the next week, so in a way, the duo’s combined efforts gave a final victorious send-off to their late champion friend.