When Kyle Larson was trying to hold off Chase Elliott at Michigan International Speedway last weekend, this much was certain: One of them was going to win a Sprint Cup race for the first time.
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Brad Keselowski was lined up directly behind Kyle Larson for the contest’s final waving of the green flag on lap 192.
With all the build-up Larson received before taking over the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing ride in 2014, it’s hard to believe it took 99 races for the 24-year-old driver to break through.
Keselowski finished third, another Sprint Cup rookie, Ryan Blaney, was fourth and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five. The victory snapped a winless streak of almost three years for Ganassi Racing, and Larson, of Japanese-American descent, becomes the first alumni of NASCAR’s “Drive For Diversity” program to go on and triumph at the sport’s highest level.
BAD DAY FOR BUSCH: On a restart with 175 laps to go, Kyle Busch lost control of his auto and spun out of Turn 4.
“That’s Kyle”, Ganassi said.
Bad luck bit him at Bristol, but Larson proved that rigor and focus could win out in MI. We parked it for him so that was really cool. Larson led 41 laps for the afternoon and was among the leaders all race long. We’ve worked really, really hard to get a win and just haven’t done it and finally all the hard work by everybody, hundreds of people at our race shop, people who’ve got me to the Cup series, it was all paying off. All also started in the top three, and although only one went on to win the race, all put up more than 110 DraftKings points. Even going back, today I think about days like at Dover where we finished second behind Matt.
The caution flag flew four times for 17 laps and there were 20 lead changes among 13 drivers. Not surprising considering he has been the best driver in 2016 that has been unable to seal the deal and get the win. I don’t know if he was going to be able to win at that point.
Chris Buescher, who has a victory but still needs to stay in the top 30 in points to make the Chase, finished 35th after some early engine trouble.
Larson’s friend, Bryan Clauson, passed away earlier this month as a result of injuries sustained in a USAC midget auto race. Seems like every time we come here, we want to win so bad, we run third or fourth every time, which is really good in the Sprint Cup Series, but it’s certainly not the win we’re looking for.
“From where we started our year to where our cars are now, we’ve made a lot of progress”, McMurray said. He said a mistake on the final restart of the day, which came with nine laps to go and with him in the lead, cost him his first Cup win. He won his first NASCAR national series race Saturday.
Let’s start our journey to finding that driver, and putting together an overall lineup. Took me a few years to win an Outlaw race. “He said, ‘They all had a shot at me the first time around and they passed, ‘” Ganassi said. “It’s special because all the hard work’s paid off”. We’re right below them.
Ganassi had waited 99 races between NASCAR victories.
Larson’s first career victory nearly certainly won’t be his only career victory, but the road to Homestead certainly won’t be easy.
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“Yeah, there’s a lot of good tracks”, Larson continued. Had another race gone by where he came close to winning but failed, more questions would have lingered.
