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David Gravel Not Deterred By His Haters: “If People Are Booing Me And I’m Winning, I Love That”

May 22, 2026  ·
  John Trent

David Gravel shared that he’s not deterred by his haters especially after his run in with Kyle Larson during the Kings Royal prelim at Eldora last year.

Gravel and Larson were in a very good battle for the third position in the closing laps of the preliminary feature. Larson tracked down Gravel and threw a slider at him in turn 1 with two laps left in the race. The slider forced Gravel to check up coming out of turn 2, but he then threw his own slider into three and completed it coming out of turn 4. Gravel defended a crossover going into turns 1 and 2 on the last lap, but Larson threw a monster slider at him through three and four and was able to get the spot and finish the race in third.

On the cool down lap, Gravel got into Larson and spun him around. The two then exchanged words with each other while still seated in their cars on turn 2.

In his third place interview, Larson was asked about his battle with Gravel. He said, “It was good. Good hard racing. Two hard racing drivers right there. Hope the fans enjoyed it. I know it was tight from my seat. Sometimes you come out ahead and sometimes you don’t, and tonight we got in front of him and beat him once again last lap.”

As for Gravel, he told DirtVision, “He’s been running me the same way for the last couple weeks and it starts at Huset’s. And he’s got a vendetta towards us. And we can keep playing that game, but eventually it’s not going to be good. But he should be a professional. He thinks our team is not professional. And he should be the ultimate professional. He’s not driving like that on the race track. So we’re friends, but I guess right now we’re not.”

When asked about Larson’s slider through three and four on the last lap, Gravel stated, “That is past the point. It was all the stuff before that. He did it to me twice in that feature before that. I gave it back to him once and then he gave me it back again. You know, him running third or fourth this race doesn’t change his life. He doesn’t do this for a living. And he’s got to remember that. And we’ll see.”

On X, Larson shared that his discussion with Gravel was them “ironing out the details of his 2027 High Limit contract tonight on the backstretch at Eldora. Still negotiating terms… mainly how he’ll handle racing against the best every night.”

Gravel replied writing, “Two of your top drivers got hurt this week maybe that would open your eyes on how to race with respect. If you and all your fans think that how you race in a sprint car is racing with respect you are fooled. I will take all the smoke. As far as the contract better make it good.”

Gravel spoke about the villain role he’s kind of taken on since then in an appearance on The Dirt Parlor. He said, “That’s just all crazy how it all turned out, what happened with Larson at Eldora. Something that happens with late models every weekend. I mean, guys driving into somebody after the checkered. That happens all the time. I didn’t think it was a big deal. Like, he checked-. He locked the brakes up, and I hooked up his bumper a little bit. It wasn’t anything like malicious or I wrecked his car or nothing.”

“So, for me, people call me a crybaby or whatever, you could YouTube Tony Stewart or YouTube Steve Kinser. You know what I mean? These guys, the best in the sport, some of the best of our generation they would complain, or yell, or go on the most tangents of anybody,” he continued. “I don’t think I even went on a tangent. I don’t really understand it. If people are booing me and I’m winning, I love that. To shut up the crowd when they’re booing you, to silence the crowd.”

He explained, “I’ve played sports my whole life and I’ve always been a small person so I’ve always had an edge to me. I love playing basketball. I love playing football. But just ’cause I was smaller, I was still boxing you out and I could get plenty of rebounds over people that were way taller than me. That’s just a part of my whole life. So I love it. Bring it on. And whatever happens, happens.”

“I think every race car driver has that competitive nature, obviously, but when you got to block out the noise, or you can’t get emotional about it on the race track, there’s a lot of thing you got to block out to stay in the zone, to stayed homed in, and still try to do the best at the task at hand. You go on tangents or you try to wreck somebody on purpose then bad things could happen to your car or whatever and when you’re racing for championships, it’s so hard, you can’t afford to do that,” he concluded.

Gravel would go on to share more details about his run in with Larson. He specifically shared that World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series Director Carlton Reimers recommended both drivers go to the trailer to talk about the event with each other, but they were not being taken there to get a talking to or any other kind of disciplinary action.

He shared, “We’ve moved on since then, but for whatever reason I’ve claimed the villain role. But I’ve raced a long time already and Donny Schatz used to be the most booed when he was winning 25 races a year. I haven’t won 25 races a year, but like 10. Steve Kinser would get booed and Sammy [Swindell] would get booed more than anybody. So, I would say Sammy and Donny got booed the most when I started races 410 and started getting in the mix of things. It’s just part of it. It’s part of the sport. It’s part of the fun. I love it.”

NEXT: David Gravel Breaks Down His Up And Down 5th Place Finish At Jacksonville

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Author: John Trent