Giovanni Scelzi, Corey Day, and the remaining 100-plus competitors during this week’s Knoxville Nationals at Knoxville Raceway gave it their everything. But for another year, nobody’s best other than Kyle Larson’s best mattered.

The Elk Grove, Calif., superstar added to his ever-growing stature in another 50-lap Championship Saturday main event dominated by his captivating talents. For the second straight year, Larson led every lap from the pole and was hardly challenged in the race for the most coveted prize in Sprint Car racing.

It’s also Larson’s third Nationals title overall, which cements him alongside Steve Kinser (12 titles), Donny Schatz (11), Doug Wolfgang (five), Danny Lasoski (four), Kenny Weld (four), and Mark Kinser (three) to win at least a trio of Knoxville Crown Jewels. Even better, he’s only the fourth driver to win his three titles in a four-year span, joining Steve Kinser, Schatz and Lasoski.

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“It’s special. I wish we could claim 2020 as a Knoxville Nationals. It’d be four out of five, I guess,” the 32-year-old Larson said. “It’s pretty amazing. I was a fan watching Donny, and a competitor a little bit when he was on his run there. You’re watching it and you can’t believe that he’s winning gate toughest Sprint Car race in the world, easily, every year … (he won) nine out of 10 (from 2006-15).”

“We seem to have hit on something here. We race really well. I feel like our car gets better and better every year we come here.”

Larson’s margin of victory goes down as nearly four seconds better than Scelzi, but according to him the feat wasn’t necessarily as breezy as it looked.

“Of all the Knoxvilles I’ve won, this was the most challenging track, I feel like, to keep up with the conditions of it changing,” Larson said. “The two Knoxvilles I won before this was pretty similar. They reworked the bottom, reworked the top, before both races. We ran the bottom for a long time. The middle was dirty.

“It didn’t have the grip like normal Knoxville does. Then you move up to the top and you ring the top, and it takes rubber, and you move down the racetrack. This year, I didn’t really know where to run before the green flag dropped. (Daryn) Pittman almost got around me coming to the start. Yeah, I played around with different lines quite a bit.

“It’s just an awesome track. I love Knoxville. As I said, it changes more than any other track in the country in a 25-lap segment. That makes it a lot of fun for the drivers.”

Larson only appeared threatened twice Saturday: When the second-starting Pittman tried powering around the outside of Larson off turn four, just seconds before completing the opening lap, and in the laps before the lap-25 halfway break when Carson Macedo mounted a midrace charge.

Macedo, who eventually finished fourth, had chopped Larson’s three-second lead down to four-tenths. And when crew chief Paul Silva elected not to change right-rear tires on Larson’s No. 57 machine whereas his nearest competitors did, then came the notion that Larson was even more vulnerable. But “Paul’s really smart,” Larson declared in Saturday’s postrace presser, adding that “there’s no real reason to put on new tires if they’re not damaged.

“We didn’t have any blisters. They didn’t show much wear. We decided to keep them on,” Larson said. “I feel like, this year, at times — and maybe I’m using this as an excuse because we’ve sucked most of the year — but I feel like we’ve had some inconsistent tires that have thrown us off and made us struggle worse than we think we are.

“We felt good the first 25 and didn’t want to risk any sort of weird thing present itself, and have a spade. I was happy when I heard them say to keep them on. It gave me more confidence I guess to fire off the next green knowing what I have is pretty good.”

Larson raced out to a second lead two laps into the second 25-lap stint, but then Scelzi dispatched Macedo for second and stayed within three-tenths of Larson on laps 32 and 33 as slower traffic became a factor. By lap 40, though, Larson stretched the lead back more than a second, which then swelled into two seconds by lap 42, and three seconds by lap 46.

"I felt like the second 25 I pieced together some good laps. I got hung up for a minute in traffic, but I felt, overall, I did a decent job,” Larson said. “And then the track finally progressed where you can run through the middle and things like that, at least for me. That helped get through traffic a little easier, too.”

Scelzi, meanwhile, made most of his ground up in turns three and four — “I felt like the bottom in three and four was really my sweet spot," he added — but couldn't keep pace with Larson in traffic.

“You could kind of drift off two and catch that grip in the middle, but don’t know if I faded mentally or if lappers were kind of on the bottom," Scelzi said. "I struggled getting by Brad (Sweet). He was as fast as I was. And then Kyle kind of sailed off into the distance. I don’t know. I’m going to replay that one for a while in my head."

Scelzi also made another observation while offering Larson his highest praises.

“Obviously Kyle runs three- to four-hundred-lap races that might not be as physically demanding, but it’s mentally draining for sure to run a stock car that long," the 22-year-old Scelzi said. "He’s so good in every discipline, he’s probably the greatest driver ever to live. I don’t think it’s silly saying that. We all know. To close on the 57 was encouraging … but to run second, you have to lose these races before you can win them."

Like Scelzi, Day appreciated the feat of finishing on the Knoxville Nationals podium. It's especially impressive in his third Nationals start and second A-main appearance. And that he went 11th-to-third on a traction-heavy racetrack. Also like Scelzi, Larson gets Day's vote as his personal GOAT.

“To sit up here with Kyle and Gio, and like Gio said, I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet better than Kyle Larson in a race car," the 18-year-old Day said. "So that means a lot.”