Darrell Wallace Jr. wins at Eldora Speedway; Kyle Larson steals the show

The Mudsummer Classic delivered for a second straight year Wednesday night at Eldora Speedway

Last year's inaugural Mudsummer Classic was an overriding success. So much so Tony Stewart immediately became concerned how Eldora Speedway was going to match the excitement when the Camping World Truck Series returned for a second visit.

Eldora's owner shouldn't have distressed himself. Because not only was the Mudsummer Classic as compelling as the original Wednesday, it might have exceeded its predecessor.

Disregard Darrell Wallace Jr. leading 97 of 150 laps en route to an emotional victory. Instead, be mindful of what happened between the green flag dropping and the checkered flag wavering. That was when an abundance of side-by-side racing featuring drivers bouncing off one another and the walls was common place throughout the night.

"I’m going to sum this up really short and really easy. If you didn’t like that race you don’t know what racing is all about.-Tony Stewart

No one in the 30-truck field escaped without some sort of damage, including Wallace. The 20-year-old driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports scrapped the wall on more than one occasion even as he continued to hold the point. Fox Sports calculated Eldora's walls were contacted 317 times, a staggering figure considering the race was not quite 90 minutes.

"I'm going to sum this up really short and really easy," Stewart said. "If you didn't like that race you don't know what racing is all about.

"Because when you have a half-mile dirt track and you have trucks four-wide, legitimately four- and three-wide for a bunch of the race -- we don't even have that at any of our big races. As good as it was last year this definitely topped it."

While Wallace left with the golden shovel awarded to the victor, it was Larson who made the biggest impression. The heralded Sprint Cup rookie with a background in dirt sprint cars offered a clinic on how to best navigate the 1-mile oval, adroitly completing passes high, low and wherever.

It wasn't Larson's precision, however, that stood out. No, it was how he manhandled his truck often beyond the edge of control only to carryon without slowing down. In a desperate attempt to catch Wallace in the final stages, Larson, running second, pounded the wall nearly every lap.

Even with a crunched hood, a front bumper barely hanging on and the right-side flattened like a steamrolled pancake, Larson still gained ground on Wallace.

Then it was over after one hit too many caused Larson to slow with two laps to go. His truck battered, beaten and finally, broken. Larson dropped to 26th overall. Few, though, would remember where he finished.

"Kyle had one of those gladiator runs," Stewart said. "He did not leave anything on the table. If he wasn't going to win it, he was going to wear it. That's moments that happen at places like this that make for great racing."

For Wallace the win was a shock. Eldora was only his second start on dirt, and he never expected to be a challenger Wednesday. Yet there he was up front and dominating. Even when Larson charged, Wallace never wavered.

"Holy cow," Wallace said in Victory Lane. "Eldora? No Way! Are you kidding me?"

No one was joking and that includes Stewart. Having stated his case earlier in the day that Eldora deserved a Sprint Cup date, Stewart disclosed a grandiose idea post-race.

"If we can raise $25 million we will put a dome over Eldora Speedway," Stewart said. "This is not a joke."

However outlandish it may sound is there any reason to doubt that Stewart, who says he had an engineering firm study the feasibility, could pull off such a feat? In consecutive years he has done the once unthinkable having staged a pair of highly successful races on a type of track that until last year was alien to NASCAR for over 40-plus years.

An idea which if it ever does come to fruition would really give Stewart a reason to be stressed. Then he'd find a way to make it go off without a hitch; just as he did Wednesday.

Mudsummer Classic results

Finish	Start	Driver	Laps	Status
1	6	Darrell Wallace Jr.	150	Running
2	3	Ron Hornaday Jr.	150	Running
3	4	Ryan Blaney	150	Running
4	10	Ken Schrader	150	Running
5	13	Ty Dillon	150	Running
6	18	John H. Nemechek	150	Running
7	2	Jeb Burton	150	Running
8	5	Johnny Sauter	150	Running
9	9	Matt Crafton	150	Running
10	19	Austin Dillon	150	Running
11	8	Tyler Reddick	150	Running
12	24	German Quiroga	150	Running
13	21	Ben Kennedy	150	Running
14	7	Joey Coulter	150	Running
15	27	Tyler Young	150	Running
16	14	Timothy Peters	150	Running
17	23	Chase Pistone	150	Running
18	16	JR Heffner	150	Running
19	26	John Wes Townley	150	Running
20	17	Gray Gaulding	150	Running
21	15	TJ Bell	150	Running
22	12	Mason Mingus	150	Running
23	20	Bryan Silas	150	Running
24	25	Korbin Forrister	150	Running
25	30	Michael Annett	149	Running
26	11	Kyle Larson	148	Accident
27	29	Norm Benning	148	Running
28	28	Jody Knowles	148	Running
29	1	Erik Jones	144	Running
30	22	Michael Affarano	93	Overheating

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