KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Kyle Larson said he would turn his attention to the Indianapolis 500, and a second crack at racing immortality, the moment he stepped out of his car following the NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway on Sunday.
The only problem with that? He wasn’t due for practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway until Tuesday.
Plenty of time to squeeze in another race.
So even as Larson was basking in the glow of a third Cup Series win of the season while flying to Indianapolis on Sunday night, he wasn’t quite ready to fully focus on the 500. The plan was to hop in a car and drive to Kokomo, Indiana, for a sprint car race on Monday night, and only then turn his focus to the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
“He just goes and goes and goes,” marveled Chad Knaus, the vice president of competition at Hendrick Motorsports, which fields his No. 5 car in the Cup Series and is working with Arrow McLaren to field Larson’s car for the Indy 500.
The reality is that Larson would rather be behind the wheel of a race car than behind a TV screen, or a bar, or just about anywhere else. His priority every year may be the Cup Series, and winning a second championship, but that leaves plenty of open dates on the schedule where he can sprinkle in an Xfinity Series race, or Truck Series race, or run at a local dirt track.
He happened to do that Friday night at Lakeside Speedway, just down the road from Kansas Speedway, where his High Limit Racing series was running. Larson nearly had a sprint car land in his lap during a scary wreck that tore up his car. But he simply shrugged it off as part of racing, and he was back at the track the next morning.
“The thing that I’ve always been impressed with Kyle since he showed up at Hendrick Motorsports is that he is unfazed,” Knaus said. “Like, nothing gets under his skin. He doesn’t get wound up. He doesn’t get emotional about maybe something that happens on the race track. He doesn’t get emotional and carry weight on his shoulders.
“He just rolls with it,” Knaus said, “and he goes and he continues to drive.”
That preternaturally placid demeanor was stretched nearly to a breaking point at last year’s Indy 500, though.
Larson was taking his first shot at “the Double,” trying to run every lap of the 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte the same day Memorial Day weekend. Many have tried but only Tony Stewart in 1999 has managed to pull it off.
But while Larson was able to overcome every problem lobbed at him on the track — aside from a speeding penalty on pit road in the 500 that took him out of contention for the win — he was powerless when it came to dealing with the weather.
He doesn’t like being powerless.
On race day, rain swept through Indianapolis Motor Speedway and soaked the track, leaving Larson to wait in Gasoline Alley to see whether the race would even take place that Sunday. And if it did take place, would he stay and run the 500 or be forced to withdraw so that he could head to Charlotte and fulfill his obligations in the Cup Series race that night?
He stuck around and ran every lap of the Indy 500, and was chosen rookie of the year afterward. But the delay kept him from starting the Coca-Cola 600, and by the time his helicopter-plane-helicopter trip from Indiana to North Carolina had deposited him at the track, more rain in Charlotte kept him from ever climbing into his car there and completing a lap.
“Unfortunately once Mother Nature stepped in,” Knaus said, “we didn’t have a whole lot that we could do.”
The long-range forecast for the Indianapolis 500 looks much better this year.
And once again, Larson is heading into perhaps the busiest month of his calendar year riding a wave of on-track momentum.
His dominating victory at Kansas Speedway, where he led 221 of 267 laps on Sunday, was his third Cup Series win of the season, and it moved him into first place in the points standings. Larson also has won two of his three Xfinity starts, one of his two Truck races, and he has a win and three top-five finishes in five sprint car features in the High Limit series.
Then again, all that success doesn’t seem to matter much to him.
“I don’t really let a race affect the next day of my life,” Larson explained Sunday night. “I would rather win leading into these next couple of weeks than have a DNF or something. But I don’t really think it matters.”
What happens the next couple of weeks matters a lot, though. He’s been waiting a whole year to try “the Double” again.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a fun two weeks,” Larson said. “I look forward to working together with the team, Arrow McLaren, and learning the car more, trying to narrow in on our balance, and just trying to have a smooth couple weeks like we had last year, and execute like you would in any race and try to be in the hunt at the end.”
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