Kyle Larson still driver to beat at South Point 400

The car Kyle Larson will drive in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be sponsored by Tarleton and Son, stanch supporter of his dirt-track racing career. It will be flat black with silver-gray numerals and lettering.

The paint scheme bears a strong resemblance to the football uniforms worn by Bishop Sycamore, a notorious high school football team from Ohio that was not as advertised.

But make no mistake about it: Kyle Larson is the real deal.

Larson won five races, including the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the spring, en route to capturing NASCAR’s regular-season championship and assuming the favorite’s role in the 10-race, four-round playoffs.

He finished second in the playoff opener at Darlington, sixth in the second race at Richmond and won for the sixth time in 2021 in the playoff race at Bristol, Tennessee, last Saturday night.

Larson could line up for Sunday’s race at the Valley of Fire exit on Interstate 15 North and still be the man to beat.

But as expected, the soft-spoken 29-year-old superstar in the making showed restraint when asked about adding to another streak of dominance and earning an unprecedented Las Vegas sweep.

“Just treating every race like a new one and kind of forgetting about the last one,” Larson said after coming home first in an entertaining race at Bristol and steering clear of the controversy involving pursuers Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott, who collided trying to deny him.

“You’re using that momentum, really. … We (will) just try to regroup and reset to start these next three races with a new goal in mind of advancing through the Round of 12.”

The victory at Bristol was the 12th of Larson’s career, with half coming this season — his first with Hendrick Motorsports after serving a nearly one-year suspension for using a racial slur during a televised online racing event.

The springtime win at Las Vegas came in just his fourth race behind the wheel of the No. 5 Chevrolet. Larson wasted little time in expressing gratitude to his new car owner Rick Hendrick, who had all four of his drivers advance to the second tier of playoffs.

“Thanks Mr. H. for believing in me,” he said on his in-car radio after crossing the LVMS finish line in March.

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.

Wallace isn’t expected to be foremost among his challengers in the playoff race, though a number of drivers could step forward should Larson run into a problem. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. won the first two playoff races at Darlington and Richmond, and the latter is a two-time LVMS winner.

Brad Keselowski has three Las Vegas victories. Penske Racing stablemate Joey Logano has won here twice. And don’t discount Kyle Busch, who won on his hometown track in 2009 and is hungry for another trip to victory circle after finishing third in the spring race.

This will be the second and last race on the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval using NASCAR’s low horsepower, high downforce rules package before the new Gen X cars debut in 2022.

The quality of the racing at LVMS sometimes leaves something to be desired, but that wasn’t the case in the spring race — there were 27 lead changes among 12 drivers, with the last being Larson.

“Today @LV Motor Speedway was probably the most entertaining race I ever watched as Kyle drove the race of his life,” no less of an authority than Mario Andretti wrote on Twitter. “Ol’ Rick (Hendrick) knew what he was doing when he hired him.”

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.