Larson looking to overcome history
Before a new chance at Daytona, Cup Series champ heading to L.A.
Kyle Larson saw the white flag as he crossed the start-finish line at Daytona International Speedway, putting him 2.5 miles away from Victory Lane.
By Turn 2 of the final lap of the 2017 Daytona 500, Larson’s day was over — an empty fuel tank ending his bid.
“I remember the butterflies I was feeling,” Larson recalled this past week. “Didn’t last very long.”
Larson hopes to finally experience those nerves again, on Feb. 20 during the race’s 64th running.
He enters his eighth Cup Series season as defending champion and the driver to catch, beginning with Sunday’s Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
The 29-year-old also knows how quickly things can change.
Much has happened since Larson’s best chance to capture NASCAR’s ultimate prize five years ago.
He followed a 4-win 2017 with a two-season slump with just 1 victory, lost his ride and reputation following a racial slur in 2020 and then enjoyed improbable success and redemption during a 10-win 2021.
Even so, Larson does not expect to carry much momentum into 2022 as drivers move into the Next Gen cars.
“Had we not changed cars and were still in the Gen-6 car, I would feel extremely confident rolling into this year,” Larson said. “There’s just so much unknown.”
Start with the 150-mile exhibition Clash.
NASCAR’s first event at the
historic Coliseum will be run on a quarter-mile track modeled after Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, site of 29 short-track, quarter-mile races from 1958-71.
“The racing is going to be crazy with how short the track is, the bumping and stuff — and I’m sure tempers flaring,” Larson said. “It’s going to be really cool.”
Larson, a native of the Sacramento, California, area, also is eager to race in his home state in a venue where the Olympics, Super Bowls, major rock concerts and even a 1987 papal mass were staged.
“I’m too young to appreciate the full history of the Coliseum,” Larson said. “The stuff that I’ve watched in the Coliseum is like supercross and a little bit of college football. Up until less than a year ago that was never on my radar that I’d get to race in the Coliseum.”
Larson’s radar knows no bounds. This love of racing various formats carried him through his darkest days.
Larson turned to his roots as a dirt racer in 2020 after an all-too-casual use of a racial slur during a virtual racing event went viral. A six-month suspension turned into an 11-month exile from NASCAR.
Chip Ganassi Racing fired Larson and nearly every sponsor dropped him after he used the N-word to address his spotter during a livestream of an iRacing event.
Larson found solace behind the wheel at local dirt tracks, winning 46 times around the country and honing his skills for a return few saw coming.
Given a second chance by Hendrick Motorsports, Larson became the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 and second since Jeff Gordon in 1998 with 10 victories in a season.
Even as reigning Cup Series champion, Larson raced in the dirt during the offseason.
“Really it just comes down the love to the sport and me wanting to be as good as I possibly can be,” he said. “The only way to do that is to race because you learn something new every time you’re on the race track. I want to be the best and it takes a lot of sacrifice to do that.
“But I love doing it.”
Larson hopes his devotion and dedication pay dividends during the Daytona 500, where has just two finishes inside the top 10 and a close call in 2017 that still haunts him.
“I haven’t even been close to winning it since then,” he said. “It’s definitely a race I want to win and hopefully this is the year we can do it.”