Larson reigns at Michigan
Driver wins third in a row at track
Kyle Larson flew to his third consecutive win at Michigan International Speedway in Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400. Literally.
He and his No. 42 Chevrolet SS benefited from an overtime restart in the latest installment of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. He got a strong jump and passed Furniture Row Racing teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Erik Jones and held on to collect the fourth Cup series checkered flag of his career.
Larson, 25, is the third driver to win three in a row at Michigan and the first since Bill Elliott did it in 1985 and 1986 (four in a row). David Pearson was the other to do it (1972-73). Elliott and Pearson are in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
“That’s some (elite) company, for sure,” Larson said. “It’s an awesome finish for us.”
Larson led for only two laps. Truex and Jones followed him across the finish line. Ryan Newman and Trevor Bayne rounded out the top five.
After a caution with 13 laps left, Larson got to line up eighth with new tires. He moved up to fifth and then fourth. A red flag to clean up fluid on the track after Michael McDowell’s spin on the backstretch brought the final restart, and Larson saw an opportunity to squeeze between the three cars ahead of him, including those of Truex and Jones.
“It was kind of a struggle for us all day,” Larson said. “I felt like I was good when I could find clean aero on my car. But anytime I’d get any bit of dirty
air or any bit of the weight of the car in front of me, I’d get extremely loose, even when I wasn’t close to anybody.
“We definitely didn’t have the car that we had here the last two times we’ve won, but we kept fighting — probably even harder than those other two wins. ... This win feels amazing.”
Larson’s quest for the threepeat actually began Thursday when he rode with Chip Ganassi, his team’s owner, to an airport near Detroit after Chevy’s unveiling of the 2018 ZL1 Camaro downtown.
Larson pleaded with Ganassi to let him run in Saturday’s Knoxville Nationals in Iowa, sprint car’s biggest annual race. That presented Ganassi with a bit of a quandary: let his young star continue to blossom and race in Knoxville at a hobby that Larson says keeps him fresh, or keep Larson in Michigan where he could practice Saturday and focus on the No. 42 Chevrolet team.
A groundswell of support on social media helped sway Ganassi, who gave his blessing. Larson, who spent time signing autographs before the Knoxville finale and thanked fans for their support on social media, narrowly lost to Donny Schatz in the finale. “Still a heck of a race,” said Larson, who is one of several NASCAR drivers who moonlight in sprint car racing.
“One of the reasons I did let him do it was the fact that this race didn’t start until 3 p.m.,” Ganassi said. “I think if it would have been a noon start or something (I wouldn’t have let him go), but he understands the gravity of the situation as you drill into the fall or late summer ( before the playoffs). But (we knew) this was his last sprint car race of the season.”
Larson didn’t make it back to Michigan until 2:45 a.m. Sunday. Some teammates thought he’d be too tired to run. Not Larson. He was ready.
“A lot of times it’s easy to see my passion for sprint car racing as me not being focused on Cup,” Larson said. “But that’s definitely not the case. Anytime I strap into any car, I’m focused on that day and that race.
“Today was all about the Cup series. I was focused on it and got the win.”