LARSON TAKES SPIN IN WINNER’S CIRCLE
Run at runner-up ends with victory
Mike Larson couldn’t have been certain his boy was going to win Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, but he knew the trend line was promising.
Kyle Larson had finished second in three consecutive Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races and led the standings entering the fifth race of the season. He would start from the pole. Larson had finished second at the 2-mile oval in 2014. He’d even won in the Xfinity Series race Saturday.
Mike Larson just hoped that when his son notched his second career Cup win, he’d remember advice imparted from his formative days racing go-karts.
“You don’t have to go and celebrate it by burning the tires off the car or anything,” Mike Larson told USA TODAY Sports on Sunday morning. “That feels like you’re rubbing it in all the other drivers’ faces a little bit.”
The understated Larson wasn’t overly flamboyant in celebrating an overtime victory, but he used crew chief Chad Johnston’s instructions to “burn it down” as permission for a smoky and wildly popular celebration in his home state. With the run the 24- year-old is enjoying as he attempts to make the leap from breathlessly awaited prospect to perennial title contender, the old man might have to indulge his son even more of those moments.
Larson needed an overtime restart to finally finish off what was an otherwise dominating performance; he led 110 of 202 laps. Afterward, Larson’s son, Owen, applied the requisite sticker for a race win on his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet as the celebration took on a more measured tone.
In his fourth full Cup season, Larson appears ready to begin paying off the faith and financial commitment owner Chip Ganassi made when using him to replace former Formula One and Indy- Car driver Juan Pablo Montoya in 2014. Larson, much like Team Penske’s Joey Logano, arrived at NASCAR’s highest levels young and in the wake of his prodigious reputation. His exploits as sprint car driver had rapt future contemporaries such as four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, three-time champ Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne, who also devel- oped from open-wheel backgrounds.
With that came immediate expectation. But Mike Larson doesn’t think it penetrated his son’s thinking. He told his father countless times, before innumerable races, that he doesn’t get nervous. And eventually Mike Larson had to start believing it.
“Kyle must be an alien or something, because I have to believe him. He’s not BS-ing me,” Mike Larson said. “I honestly think he’s not affected. He gets asked about all the second-place finishes and how it affects him and how that has to be frustrating, but I don’t think it is. And I feel the same way.”
Larson did allow himself to jokingly lament the second-place finish at Phoenix Raceway last week in the motor coach lot, remarking twice how a win evaded him when Ryan Newman made a no-tire gamble stick on a final restart.
“He said, ‘Dang,’ and he was kind of kidding about it,” Mike Larson recalled. “And I said, ‘Hey, man, look at it on the bright side. You’re the point leader.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I know. That feels good.’ ”
And now, he’s the points leader by a greater margin and virtually ensured a spot in the 10-race Cup playoffs.
“Lots of fun to be Kyle Larson right now,” he said.
“This could be a really good year,” Mike Larson said. “It’s certainly starting out that way.”