By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Against two of the fastest wheelmen in both NASCAR Cup and O’Reilly Series competition, teenager Brent Crews made his name known Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.
In fact, he put an exclamation mark on his name.
When race dominator Kyle Larson pitted for four fresh tires in the closing laps, it put Crews alongside Connor Zilisch for the lead with 17 laps to go while Larson restarted sixth.
What followed was a gloves-off, snappy fight for the win which saw Zilisch and Crews trade the lead before and after Crews popped the wall in Turn 1.
Unfortunately for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Larson was able to overtake and grab second place. Crews had to settle for third as longtime friendly rival Zilisch took his 12th win in O’Reilly.
Crews and Zilisch have raced together since they were young kids, a rivalry that hit its highest peak on Saturday.
“Connor is one of my best friends when we step out of a race suit. When we get in the car, we are the world’s biggest rivals,” Crews said. “Not necessarily that we wreck each other or anything, but there is no one on this earth that I would want to lose to than Connor.”
Despite riding the high side to the lead for three laps during the battle, that is exactly what bit the 18-year-old and perhaps cost him his first win.
“I was loose up there and was trying to drive it really hard because Kyle was on four fresh tires behind me,” he said. “I feel like I had to make a lot of speed up there.
“But in reality, the clean air is so much that if I stayed tucked up there on the top, I think we would be doing donuts right now.
“Our car was incredible, our race speed was good during practice and I apparently need to get better in qualifying. Had a great car in the race, was able to run the top really well, made some rookie mistakes there getting free up into the wall.
“I feel like if I backed it up some, I could have helped myself out. But it’s tough with Larson breathing down my neck.”
With Larson slapping the wall with two laps to go, Crews, in only his fifth NOAPS start, felt better about his error not coming down to just experience.
“You saw the best guy in our sport go up there and knock the fence down in [Turns] 3 and 4,” he said. “Once he did that, it made me feel a little bit better. But at the same time, I wanted him to go race Connor really hard to give me another chance.
“Honestly, I can’t blame that on experience because I have been put in those situations my whole life since I was a little kid around Connor, around Kyle. It wasn’t necessarily like a pressure thing, I’m sure experience would help.”
The result puts Crews now 75 points outside the Chase cutline after missing four races due to his age (now being granted a full-time drive after turning 18 last month).
“It feels good, it’s not something that I’m gonna go home and be happy about,” he said. “It might sound bad, but as competitors with a great race team like this, we come here to win. Today, I didn’t execute to my full potential and just made a little bit of costly mistakes at the end.”