Kyle Larson stayed in Iowa following his run-in with NASCAR Cup Series teammate Chase Elliott at last Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350, beating Hendrick Motorsports protégé Corey Day to a $21,000 prize at the Front Row Challenge at Southern Iowa Speedway.

Larson, 33, cooled off from Sunday’s  subtle radio rant aimed at Elliott by returning to sprint cars in Iowa, hoping to return to winning ways. The Hendrick Motorsports star is already locked in for the playoffs, but he hasn’t won since Kansas in May, and the postseason will begin later this month.

Larson competed in the 30th Annual American Rebel Light Front Row Challenge at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, and took on his Hendrick protégé, Day,  who beat him in Las Vegas earlier this year. It was another valuable learning lesson for Day, who is still honing his craft ahead of a future NASCAR breakthrough.

Reports suggest that Day could land a full-time seat in NASCAR from next season in the tiers below the Cup Series. Day has already competed part-time in Xfinity.

“Yeah, not bad at all. From where I feel we started the night and where we heat raced to where we ended up in the main event, we made a lot of gains, and that’s all I can ask for. Yeah, it definitely sucks two years in a row getting beat by him,” Day told Sprint Car Unlimited.

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“It was a lot closer last year than it was this year. Yeah, it sucks, but we’re getting beat by him and only him, and I guess we’re close at least,” Day added. Day says Larson’s car was way better on the night.

“I feel like I can move on pretty easily. I’ve got trust in my guys that they’re going to give everything they’ve got to get our car better,” he added. “Unfortunately, at the end of the day, like I’ve complained about multiple times now, you’re just very handcuffed by your race car on a half mile.

“Tonight, Kyle and I are both out there running wide open and his car was way better than I was. He pushed straightaway on me. I adjusted the line he was running and he was just way better. That’s the part of this that I don’t love. 

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“Like I said, I know my guys and I will work super hard to make sure we got a competitive car on Wednesday night. For me, every time I get in that race car, I’m being good at resetting myself. I have the trust in them, like I said, that it’s going to be better this time if it was bad last time.”

The Knoxville Nationals are next, starting on Wednesday. Day is hoping to move on and perform strong at the event. “Yeah, it feels good. We were terrible last night at Knoxville, so we made some gains tonight, like I said, and I’m hoping some of them translate. We’re going to kind of go there with some of the stuff that we learned tonight,” he continued.

“At the same time, I don’t know exactly what that’s going to do. I can only hope that we roll into Knoxville on Wednesday night and it goes around there good and qualified good. If you don’t, you might as well go home.

“Yeah, I don’t know. This is the least confident I’ve been going into Nationals the past two years. We won an outlaw show in June and didn’t translate to last night. I don’t know if the tire changed again or what, but yeah, we’re struggling.”