After several close calls and heartbreaking near-misses, Kyle Larson is finally a Sprint Cup Series victor.
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During the last couple of laps of his first Sprint Cup victory, Kyle Larson was emotional.
Yet unlike Gordon and Stewart, the 24-year-old Larson didn’t have immediate, transcendent success when he jumped into NASCAR’s top division in 2014.
Elliott led by 2.86 seconds with 28 laps to go Sunday, and it looked as if Larson’s chance to catch him had been derailed when he lost ground passing a lapped vehicle. In that one, Larson could pull even with Matt Kenseth in the battle for the victory, but could not get past – and elected not to put a bumper to him. Part of it came for driving for an organization trying to dig itself out of a downturn, some of it was inexperience and some of it was plain driver error. But the likeable Clauson never made it as a Sprint Cup driver after competing in the Xfinity Series.
“There’s always pressure from Chip”.
“Probably half the tracks are some of my best race tracks”, Larson said. “That’s no secret. He says he loves winners in every tweet he sends”.
“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”. The victory was also huge for CGR, breaking a 99-race winless streak for the team as well.
“I was pretty calm for a couple laps”, said Larson, holding his young son Owen on his lap after the race. Martin Truex Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Keselowski also led laps before Larson and Elliott took over control of the race.
Larson trailed rookie Chase Elliott when the caution flag flew with 13 laps left.
“No question the kid has talent; the kid can drive”, Ganassi said. “I could feel that his could finally be it”. They’re all different personalities. Brett Moffitt won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at MI and Michael McDowell took the checkered flag in the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin to go along with Larson’s win at MI. We could have raced.
“That’s a couple races in a row in just a few short months here at this place we had a really good vehicle, had an opportunity”. Looking at those numbers, it certainly is a surprise it took this long for him to win, certainly a fact that wasn’t lost on the California native.
That’s when the nerves began to take hold.
“Solid top five day and I really think we could have raced for the win”, Bowman tweeted after the race. “I ought to know better, but as I proved today I didn’t and I don’t, so I need to readjust my restarts and try to do a better job”.
Finally, almost 24 hours after the scheduled start, the Bristol Night-Turned-To-Day-Turned-To-Late-Afternoon-Early-Evening Race saw Kevin Harvick make the trip to Victory Lane, his second of the season. “There was just a lot on the line”. “I look forward to racing him and Chase and Ryan Blaney and all those guys for years to come”.
Formula One: Although Nico Rosberg trimmed rival Lewis Hamilton’s lead in the title race after winning the Belgian Grand Prix, it was Hamilton who seemed the happier driver after turning a back-row start into a third-place finish.
Larson then exited his vehicle, took the checkered flag from the flag man and leapt into the arms of his fueler, who had run out into the infield to congratulate his driver.
“It was all emotion”, he said. “It’s something that I’ll remember forever”.
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When they exited just seconds later, Elliott, after all others had stopped for service, was out front.
