Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Camaro ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at Kansas Speedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
What are you looking to learn when you get done with the practice session? What would make it a good session for you and your guys?
“Yeah, I think for Kansas, and every track really, you kind of just want to have that short run speed. So you want to be up there on the charts a little bit, but also kind of have good long run speed and a good balance throughout the run. This place can get kind of tricky off of turn two or off of turn four, so you hope that your car is kind of finishing the corner well at those ends so you can do a good job of staying wound up with your speed. I feel like some drivers can run the middle of three and four pretty well, so hopefully my car will operate off of the top lane decently. So yeah, I think we’ll be in a good spot. It’s just trying to get a little bit better every time.”
I feel like we’ve talked about this the last couple of years when we’ve come to Kansas, but the quality of racing here is really widely praised. What is it from your perspective on the racetrack that allows this place to produce that kind of racing? And do you have as much fun on the track as it seems like fans have watching this place?
“Yeah, I enjoy Kansas a lot. It’s probably my third favorite track behind Homestead and Bristol. I just think what makes any track good is progressive banking, and this place has that.
You look at Homestead, it has it. Bristol fans hate it, but it’s got progressive banking. I feel like when you have progressive banking, it just allows more options, I think. So yeah, I think that’s why it helps the racing here because you can catch somebody and move to a different lane; get inside of them, work them over and pass them. Where you go to other tracks and do all this work to get to them, and they’re still running the same line that you have to run, and you can’t pass. So yeah, I think the progressive banking helps out a lot of these tracks.”
Obviously when we think of the championship moving to Homestead, we think of you and Tyler Reddick being pretty happy about that, but what is your reaction to that, and what is your reaction to the championship rotation in general?
“Yeah, I think ultimately I’m just happy to hear that it is going to rotate, I guess. Did they announce what tracks it’s rotating through? I imagine Phoenix, Vegas, Homestead, probably.
But yeah, I don’t know. Everybody’s good everywhere, so it doesn’t matter a whole lot. But yeah, my past history would say that I would be a lot better at Homestead than Phoenix, so I like that. But still you have to get there, and that’s really challenging to do in our format. We’ll see. And there’s other guys that are just as good or better than me at Homestead. I feel like (Ryan) Blaney’s quietly extremely good, as he is at Phoenix. At Homestead and Vegas, if he could ever get through practice, he’d probably be dominant there, too.
It’s cool that they’re rotating it.”
What about here? Would you like to see this as a championship track?
“I would love to see this place host a championship race. But yeah, you don’t really know what to expect, I would think, in November. You might have beautiful weather, or it could be freezing or snowing or whatever. I think it probably needs to stay at tracks where you can count on the weather being favorable. So yeah, I don’t know. Just with a big weekend like that, you wouldn’t want any delays.”
Was last night’s wreck any scarier or anything from other sprint car wrecks? It just looked a little strange…
“Yeah, I mean, it’s just part of racing. They got together, and I was already committed to the top and kind of had nowhere to go. Thankfully, everything held up right, and nothing got in the cockpit or anything like that.”
Do you even let yourself start to get excited about Indianapolis yet, or does that just start on Tuesday? “Yeah, I think it starts Sunday night after the race here. I really haven’t thought about it much at all. I’ve just been kind of excited about these upcoming races and tracks that we can run good at. I think once the checkered flag flies here at Kansas, I’ll get excited about Indy because I’ll be heading to Indy.
And I know I have the sprint car race on Monday, but I think still just being in Indianapolis, you think about the IndyCar, so I’ll be ready for it then.”
How much do drivers pay attention to the criticism about the Next Gen car and the racing that it does at certain tracks?
“I don’t know. I would say everybody’s probably different in what they’ve got going on in their weeks. I don’t read the media a whole lot, but I would say us drivers were part of the controversy because we were complaining about it just as much as everybody else.
I don’t know… it’s weird. Racing could totally flip this weekend. We could have the next three to five races be really exciting, and everybody’s forgotten about the boring races we’ve had before then. I’m not sure, but I think we all would love to see better racing at every track and all that. We’re all greedy people. We’re humans. But yeah, just finding that solution, I think, is always tough.”
You kind of touched on it earlier about Indianapolis next week, and I know you’re focused on this weekend, but could you just walk us through the preparations that you go through for each race? Just talk about how you balance it all out..
“Yeah, it’s been a bit busy for me here throughout this season just with a lot of the racing I’ve done and all that. And everybody preps a little differently. I feel like with our 5 team, we do a good job with our prep and being pretty into our procedure and how we do things.
When I run a one-off Xfinity race, I don’t look at any data necessarily, but you try to watch some film. And usually the tracks I’m going to are tracks I’m familiar with and have a good understanding of what it takes, feel-wise, in the car or lines and stuff. So it doesn’t make the studying super in-depth.
And then yeah, with Indy, I haven’t done a whole lot, but there’s not really much you can do studying-wise. You can watch film, which I will, and all that. But yeah, I think for Indy, you have a lot of time, really. So I think once you get in the car and kind of get an understanding of your balance of your car, then you can really kind of pick apart studying; where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, how to make all that better and be better prepared for the race.”
So what do you feel like will be the biggest gain this year in the Indianapolis 500 that you have learned from last year?
“I’m not sure. I think our car was really good last year. I felt like the race was going really smooth up until we had the brake issue and sped on pit road. So I’m not sure. I felt really prepared last year, and I would say come race time this year, if our balance is good, I’ll feel prepared again. So there wasn’t really anything too surprising, I thought, last year.”
Kyle, there was a graphic earlier in the week that showed you’ve led 1,395 laps on 1.5 mile tracks in the Next Gen car, which is more than double the second place. Is it just simply a matter of your team through setups that have allowed you guys to be as dominant as you guys are on these types of tracks, or are there other factors at play?
“I think everything factors in… car, team, driver. I’ve always excelled at mile-and-a-halves. It kind of really feels similar to winged sprint car racing to me. And then, yeah, I mean, when the Next Gen car, you can kind of — when you’re in the lead, it’s hard to pass somebody, especially when they’re doing a good job at defending. So I feel like I’ve led enough laps, I’ve gotten better at defending. All those laps I’ve led, I’ve not been the best car at every single lap, but I’ve done a good job of blocking or just making things difficult on guys behind me.
But to get to the lead – yes, it takes a good driver, good car, good pit stops, good restarts, like everything factors into it. It is a cool stat to see that we’ve led that much, and hopefully we can continue to grow it, but also grow it on other style tracks.”
There’s been talk about a horsepower increase of 750, and recently Tony Stewart has had some blaring comments on the current state of decision-making in the sport and overall how the Cup car is. If you’re aware of those comments and what he said, how much do you agree with Tony’s statement, and or what would be the one thing you’d change on the current generation of car?
“Yeah, I didn’t see anything that he said, so I’m not really sure. But I don’t know… I think we would be all for trying something new. I don’t know if it’s going to change the racing drastically or anything. It’s a decent size increase, but it’s not massive.
I don’t know… I’d be open for it. I know we all are. I think it’s gotten a little bit stale.. the racing obviously, the product and all that. So I think we’re in need of a change, a drastic change, to try and help. But yeah, I don’t know, I think it would help. It would be a good to start there.”
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