Larson celebrates return to victory lane
LAS VEGAS » Kyle Larson is back in NASCAR and back in victory lane.
On Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Larson raced to his first NASCAR victory since he was reinstated from a nearly yearlong suspension. He ran just the first four races last season, then lost his job for using a racial slur while playing a video game early in the pandemic.
He worked all last year on rebuilding his image and was hired by Hendrick Motorsports when NASCAR said the suspension would lift at the start of this year.
“Thanks Mr. H. for believing in me,” Larson radioed to boss Rick Hendrick after crossing the finish line.
He then celebrated his first career on an intermediate track with a smokefilled burnouts. Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only Black fulltime driver, was the first competitor to congratulate Larson at his car.
Larson’s move to Hendrick
was expected to be electric.
Larson is considered one of the top talents in NASCAR but won just six times in six seasons with Chip Ganassi Racing. Paired with mighty Hendrick, everyone suspected Larson would at last reach his full potential.
The victory came in his fourth race in the No. 5 Chevrolet and gave Hendrick back-to-back victories. William Byron won last week at Homestead-Miami Speedway, so Hendrick has two of its four drivers locked into the playoffs just one month into the new season.
It was the first win for crew chief Cliff Daniels, and first for that crew since 2017 with Jimmie Johnson.
“He knew deep down inside that he could get back to this level,” Daniels said of Larson.
Larson’s last victory was October 6, 2019, at Dover.
His seventh career win made him the third driver so far who was not part of the 16-driver playoff field last season to grab one of the spots. The season opened with three consecutive surprise winners in Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell and then Byron.
Larson isn’t exactly a surprise and Las Vegas was supposed to be the track in which the large teams finally took control. The 1.5-mile intermediate is the bread-and-butter of the NASCAR schedule and the top organizations have the depth and resources to dominate the circuits.
The top-nine finishers Sunday all represented NASCAR’s elite teams, with Erik Jones for singlecar Richard Petty Motorsports the only surprise with a 10th-place finish.
Brad Keselowski of Team Penske was second in a Ford and followed by hometown driver Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin in Toyotas for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Ryan Blaney was fifth for Penske and then Martin Truex Jr. and Bell put all four JGR cars in the top seven. Byron was eighth and defending race winner Joey Logano was ninth for Penske.