Kyle Larson parlays 2nd chance into 1st Cup victory at LVMS
A lot of working parts must mesh within a NASCAR Cup Series car and team before its driver can become successful. But Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway basically came down to simple mathematics:
Second chance equals first place.
In just his fourth start since being reinstated by NASCAR after using a racial slur during an online race at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, Kyle Larson led a race-high 103 laps en route to the seventh victory of his still fledgling career and his first after nine second-place finishes on a 1.5-mile oval.
He took control of a competitive race during the third stage and didn’t look back in more ways than one after beating Brad Keselowski to the checkered flag by 3.156 seconds. Las Vegas native Kyle Busch battled back from a rough start to finish third, with Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney rounding out the top five.
Larson wasted little time in thanking his new car owner, Rick Hendrick, after being suspended by NASCAR and fired by Chip Ganassi Racing.
“Thanks Mr. H. for believing in me,” he said on his in-car radio after crossing the finish line.
The first driver who congratulated Larson, whose mother is Japanese American, after his victory burnout was Bubba Wallace — the Cup Series’ only African American driver.
Day of normalcy
It was a day of redemption for Larson and a day of normalcy for NASCAR after the first three races of the 2021 season produced surprise winners.
Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell earned their first career victories in the Daytona 500 and on the Daytona road course before William Byron notched his second last week at Homestead, Florida.
Bell and Byron finished seventh and eighth Sunday. But the top five runners drove for heavyweight teams — some a little more heavyweight than others, at least at this juncture of the season, Busch said of the Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske stables after salvaging third.
“Certainly the Hendrick guys have come to play,” he said of the longtime owner who fields the cars of Larson, Byron and reigning series champion Chase Elliott, who finished 13th after crashing into Busch’s older brother, Kurt, during the third stage. “It was interesting how the 2 (Penske driver Keselowski) was fast all day. We at (Joe Gibbs Racing) are definitely a little bit behind.”
Awesome car, driver
Every race is different, but it became clear early on an overcast Sunday that this one would belong to Larson, a 28-year Californian who was reared on open wheel dirt tracks.
“This was such an awesome race car,” he said after climbing from his No. 5 Chevrolet and hearing appreciative cheers from a crowd limited to 12,500 by COVID restrictions. “It was so much fun to drive. I could go wherever I wanted to — I knew I had a real good car once we got single-filed out.”
But unlike many races at LVMS, this was far from a single-file race. Despite Larson’s dominance, there were 27 lead changes among 12 drivers and lots of racing in close quarters, especially on restarts.
One expert observer in particular was impressed with the quality of the show, Larson and Hendrick for extending his winning driver the second chance to learn from an off-track mistake.
“Today @LV Motor Speedway was probably the most entertaining race I ever watched as Kyle drove the race of his life,” legendary Mario Andretti wrote on Twitter. “Ol’ Rick knew what he was doing when he hired him.”
Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.
