Larson was the first graduate of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity and NASCAR Next programs to win a Sprint Cup race.
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Kyle Larson raced to his first Sprint Cup victory Sunday, taking the lead on a restart with nine laps remaining and holding off Chase Elliott at Michigan International Speedway in a duel between two of NASCAR’s up-and-coming standouts.
After Kyle Larson’s victory Sunday in the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway, Ganassi has that chance.
“Bryan was going to race 200 times this year”, Larson added in the media center, “He would want us to race”. Kyle Larson commented on the effort of so many participants that made this moment possible. When that concluded, he then climbed out and enthusiastically jumped atop the roof.
McMurray has a 15-point lead on Ryan Newman, the first driver on the outside looking in.
“I was teared-up that whole last few laps, because I could just feel it”, Larson said.
It was not a given that Larson would make it as a Sprint Cup driver. It came in his 99th start, three long years after he burst onto the national scene with projections of being the next big thing in a sport that hypes up young drivers then spits them out when they fail to produce.
Kyle Larson was very emotional when he exited his hot-rod in Victory Lane. Larson has clinched a spot in the Chase for the Cup, NASCAR’s playoff series.
“There’s always pressure from Chip”.
“Everybody knew it was a matter of just when”, added his team owner, Chip Ganassi, “But you know that we’ve been second plenty of times”.
But Ganassi has shown patience with his NASCAR rebuild and he’s got faith in the 24-year-old Larson. The last three races have seen a driver lead at least 196 laps. Martin Truex Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Keselowski also led laps before Larson and Elliott took over control of the race.
Still, Larson needed a late caution to get in position to win.
“There’s only one way to fix it, and that’s to hit it head on”, Elliott said. “I think it’s a lot harder to have the fortitude as a team to say, ‘Hey, we have all the pieces, we have all the stuff, we’re going to hang in there and keep massaging what we have and work with that'”. They’re all different personalities. For most of the day, we were a third-place vehicle.
When it came to stock cars, Larson won his first ever start at New Smyrna Speedway at age 19, then repeated as a victor at the same track in the highly competitive World Series of Asphalt Racing.
The victory came in Larson’s 99th start and it came accompanied by watery eyes.
Edwards finished seventh, Hamlin ninth, Kenseth 13th and Busch was 19th after spinning early in the race.
That’s when the nerves began to take hold. He has watched and waited as Larson, who was hailed as one of NASCAR’s next great talents when he entered the top-tier series as a rookie in 2014, came oh-so-close to wins only to have something happen. “I knew what was at stake there on the restart, it was a huge restart”. Not surprising considering he has been the best driver in 2016 that has been unable to seal the deal and get the win. “There was just a lot on the line”. Larson closed on Elliott but lost the ground gained in lapped traffic with just under 20 laps to go.
Larson and Clauson were both avid dirt racers. “Winning snowballs”, said Ganassi, who now can count victories in all six of the series where his cars are competing this year.
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“It was all emotion”, he said. I think the guys up front absolutely drove their butts off. It took three years to get to victory lane in the Sprint Cup.
