It was a career-best Chili Bowl performance for Daison Pursley Saturday night inside the SageNet Center in Tulsa, Okla., as he finished second.
However, Pursley was left with disappointment as NASCAR Cup Series star Kyle Larson wired the field, leading all 40 laps of the feature to snag his third Golden Driller in the historic event.
While Larson was the class of the field, Pursley believes he could still match Larson’s pace.
“Yeah, disappointing. I mean, just sucks,” Pursley began. “Kyle’s one of the best. You give him the front row like that and he’s hard to beat.
“I don’t feel like he was any faster than us or anything. He just started up front. Track position I feel like is everything in this building.”
Starting from third, Pursley hounded the back bumper of Larson’s No. 1k throughout the event.
In fact, the door swung open for the CB Industries driver with four laps to go as Larson slapped the outside wall hard as he rode the right-rear tire on it momentarily before Pursley came darting to his outside in turn one.
Before completing the pass, however, the caution flag waved due to the signage on the frontstretch wall littering the race track from Larson’s key moment.
The field would reset as Larson would hang on for the final laps.
“I had plenty of chances and never really got to capitalize on it,” Pursley said.
“So, it sucks that the banner got ripped off there and had to draw the yellow because I felt like I was gonna drive around him that corner. Just wasn’t close enough to capitalize on his mistakes.
“Nothing to hang our heads about. Just been second in this building all week, so, it kinda sucks.”
