Kyle Larson’s wild, wonderful roadshow came to the Dirt Late Model world Thursday night at Port Royal Speedway, and boy, it did not disappoint.

While Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., ran away to a dominating $10,000 victory in the 30-lap Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature, it was Larson who captured the imagination of the race’s attendees and live-stream viewers. The 29-year-old sensation from Elk Grove, Calif., who has run roughshod on the open-wheel ranks since being suspended from NASCAR and losing his Cup Series ride earlier this year made arguably one of the most impressive Dirt Late Model debuts ever, thrusting himself right in amongst the division’s best en route to a fifth-place finish that could’ve been a podium result had he not knocked smacked the wall a couple hundred yards from the checkered flag.

Not surprisingly, after Larson’s cushion-pounding performance driving the iconic K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 showed he could immediately get up to speed in a Dirt Late Model, his generational — or, dare it be said, once-in-a-lifetime — talent was the talk of the half-mile oval and social media. Hosannas were directed his way from all directions.

Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., 2020’s biggest Dirt Late Model winner, threw out the word “awesome” to describe Larson after experiencing a rare off night (eighth) in his Rocket Chassis house car. Sheppard’s team owner, Mark Richards, just shook his head in amazement when asked about the superstar known as Yung Money. Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, who battled with Larson in the top five early before slipping to a 16th-place finish, called the Californian “unreal.” A long line of racers from across the motorsports spectrum hailed him on Twitter. One fan was so smitten by Larson that he tweeted, “I would let Kyle Larson have my next kid with my wife.”

McCreadie offered praise to Larson as well, though his Longhorn car was so far ahead of the pack that he never ran a lap close to Larson.

“He did better than I thought he would honestly,” said McCreadie, who won for the third time in the last five Lucas Oil starts. “I had no doubt in my mind he’d be as fast as everybody because I would think getting out of a sprint car would make these guys feel slow to him, but racing is not easy in any division because you don’t know what you can get away with with people.”

McCreadie even mentioned the unique situation that Larson finds himself, where his versatility brings great demand for his services.

“I doubt I was ever as good as him, but I was there a long time ago, you know what I mean?” said McCreadie, a winner in the Northeast modified and midget divisions who famously posed for a photo with a teenage Larson in 2006, the year T-Mac won the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in Tulsa, Okla. “I was sitting in his spot — everybody wanted me to go drive everything. It’s a neat deal. You ride it as long as you can, because at 46 (McCreadie’s age) they don’t really care if you go do it much anymore.

And Kevin Rumley, the noted Dirt Late Model engineer who prepared his 84-year-old father Lee Roy’s Longhorn Race Car for Larson’s use, reiterated his pre-race comparison of Larson to former K&L Rumley driver Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga.

“I looked at him (running the cushion during the feature) and said, ‘That son of a bitch is J.D.,’” Rumley remarked, which prompted the 36-year-old Davenport, within earshot of Rumley after finishing a quiet 14th in the feature, to respond with a frustrating smirk, “Accept just way better … obviously.”

Larson’s Dirt Late Model debut transformed Port Royal’s already intriguing three-night Lucas Oil Series weekend — the biggest and richest full-fender event in the sprint car track’s history — into one of the most highly-anticipated races of the coronavirus-impacted 2020 season. He indicated that he understood the hype surrounding his appearance in a new racing realm during a Thursday afternoon interview for DirtonDirt.com’s Road to Eldora video series with pit reporter Dustin Jarrett.

“I think just with everything that’s gone on with me this year, there’s been a lot more attention to me,” Larson admitted. “And then, being able to win a lot of dirt races this year, it’s just kind of helped elevate dirt racing, I think, as a whole. And you look at what Jimmy Owens and Brandon Sheppard have done this year in Late Models too, it seems like every night it’s me or them two winning, and I think fans notice that and fans get excited, so for me to show up here and get to race with both of them, I think it just adds a lot of excitement.”

Larson struck all the right notes while strolling through Port Royal’s pit area with Jarrett and discussing his first attempt at wrangling a Dirt Late Model. He said he has a burning passion for the sport (“I love racing all different types of cars”), so when his buddy Greg Price, who also is friendly with Rumley and McCreadie car owner and K&L Rumley sponsor Donald Bradsher, told him that Rumley, 43, was interested in hooking up with him, he made the connection because he “knew that name” even though he doesn’t “follow Late Model racing a lot.” He said he needed to make adjustments to his seat and headrest after his first, brief test in the No. 6, on Aug. 20 at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C., and felt more comfortable when he turned another 50 laps or so on Wednesday at Friendship (N.C.) Motor Speedway, but he still arrived at Port Royal — a track he’s run in a sprint car and, with its large size and consistent surface, he figured would be a good place for his Dirt Late Model action — with uncertainty about his prospects.

“Honestly, I wanna have fun,” Larson told Jarrett. “I have zero expectations. I don’t expect myself to do great, but I just don’t want to embarrass myself either.

“I hope race fans and all these competitors here don’t think that I’m coming here to show up and show off. I really just want to have fun, and honestly, some decent expectations would be, if I could make every A-main and finish in the top 15, I would feel it was a successful weekend.

“I’m not expecting to come win,” he continued. “I’m not here to show one version of driver is better than others. I’m not here to prove a point that sprint car racers are better, because I don’t think you’ll ever be able to kind of figure that out. I guess I want everybody to sort of appreciate somebody that’s trying to cross over and enjoy it.”

If Larson or anyone else doubted his ability to adapt to a new racing discipline, he put that thinking to rest with alacrity. He clocked the quickest lap in his hot-lap session, timed third-fastest in his qualifying group (behind only Owens and Sheppard) and won his heat race by a full straightaway over Davenport, who joked that he didn’t press the issue to stay with Larson because he “wanted him to look good in his first heat race, so I knew I had second so I just let him go.”

Larson started sixth in the A-main and cracked the top five by the fifth lap. He slipped past Moran for fourth on a lap-18 restart and went inside Owens off turn four one circuit later to nose into third place. For most of the remaining distance Larson raced tooth-and-nail for third with Owens, the pair of stars swapping the position repeatedly in a battle that drew the crowd’s full attention as McCreadie raced alone out front.

On the final lap Larson and Owens actually caught eventual runner-up Kyle Strickler of Mooresville, N.C., but any inkling that Larson might steal a second-place finish in his first Dirt Late Model start evaporated when Owens dived to the bottom of turn three and slid ahead of Larson. Then, when Larson attempted to regain third with a last-ditch charge off the outside of turn four, he slapped the concrete wall flush with the right side of his car and limped the rest of the way to the finish line, settling for fifth after Chris Ferguson of Mount Holly, N.C. — a ButlerBuilt employee who made some alterations to Larson’s headrest after his Cherokee test — nipped him by inches.

Larson did continue his amazing streak of strong finishes — his 2020 sprint car, midget and Silver Crown results entering the weekend not only included 34 wins but no finishes worse than sixth in his 45 feature starts since May 30 — but the ultra-competitive racer in him wasn’t pleased with the last lap. The impact with the wall tore up the cars bodywork and also broke its j-bar and driveshaft, among other damage.

“I’m kind of mad at myself for tearing the car up there coming to the checkered,” Larson said in a post-race interview with DirtonDirt.com. “I just wanted to beat Jimmy Owens really bad and get a top three, but still just thankful to get a top five and be fast.

“It was a lot of fun. It was cool to be in contention somewhat for a podium finish there the first night out. It got to restart on top that final restart (lap 18) and get to Owens’s side I think and ran side-by-side with him for a few laps. I just kept making mistakes up against the wall trying to make sure he didn’t clear in front of me, but that was a blast for sure, a hard 30 laps.

“That was really cool, definitely different,” he added. “(It’s an) aggressive style of racing, but a lot slower pace than a sprint car … (and) it was definitely a workout. Just the steering itself (in a Late Model) is a lot tighter than a sprint car or midget or whatever … but it’s a cool vehicle. To me, just the way you run it, you enter the corner a little bit like a non-wing sprint car, but it’s fun. I look forward to the rest of the weekend and hopefully some more races throughout the rest of the year.”

In an interview with Lucas Oil Racing TV, Larson also acknowledged the six-decade history of the car he drove.

“I don’t think they get to race a whole lot with the 6 car,” Larson said. “But it was cool to put my name on the list of guys who’ve raced for them, and it would be cool to win for ‘em too.”

Rumley wouldn’t mind celebrating in victory lane at Port Royal, or perhaps somewhere else that fits Larson’s packed schedule, before the 2020 campaign is over. He saw on Thursday night that winning a Dirt Late Model feature soon isn’t out of the realm of possibility for the sublime Larson. He’s that good.

“I mean, it’s like he’s been racing (a Dirt Late Model) for five years, or 10 years,” Rumley said. “He’s a race car driver. I hate when people label guys as ‘sprint car driver’ or ‘NASCAR driver.’ He’s a race car driver, just like A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, guys like that.”