How Larson took the long way round to NASCAR Cup glory

Redemption and resurrection – Kyle Larson’s NASCAR Cup title success at Phoenix on Sunday continues Hendrick Motorsports’ own comeback story as well as his personal narrative after being banned from the sport just over 18 months ago.

While Larson was in the wilderness, not knowing if he’d ever race at the top level in stock cars again, never mind win a title, Hendrick was knuckling down to get its own house in order.

After scoring the last of Jimmie Johnson’s seven titles in 2016, its fortunes had slumped along with manufacturer Chevrolet’s. The powerhouse was more of an outhouse at times, and the exits of star names Jeff Gordon, Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr left it in need of a new identity and culture – and found it in a talent-drive that focused on youth.

Chase Elliott’s rise culminated in last year’s championship success; the addition of Alex Bowman and William Byron – essentially filling the legendary shoes of Johnson and Gordon respectively in the #24 and #48 cars – has also produced race-winning form from both. The fourth and final piece of the puzzle, though, was Larson.

The man that Tony Stewart calls “the best race car driver I have ever seen” was NASCAR’s pariah after using a racial slur during a sim racing event broadcast via Twitch in April 2020 – it cost him his ride with Chip Ganassi Racing and his livelihood. The irony now is, looking back, being outcast could be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Champion Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Camaro HendrickCars.com

Photo by: John Harrelson / NKP / Motorsport Images

Larson was a stout top-10 contender with Ganassi, but it never had the equipment capable of attaining a Cup title. Even with Hendrick’s loss of form, CGR was never top dog in the Chevrolet camp, its resources simply weren’t comparable and it was a shadow of the IndyCar team that has been so successful in the open-wheel league.

Unleashing Larson in Hendrick’s Gen-6 Chevrolet 1LE version of the Camaro ZL1 changed the game.

Champion Elliott – along with Bowman and Byron – struggled to keep pace with the new kid, and even Rick Hendrick was shocked by what transpired in Larson’s maiden season with the team.

“Did I think he could win 10 races and the championship? No,” says Hendrick. “I mean, I thought he’d be fast, I thought the team would be good, but I had no idea when the season started that we could win 18 races and he could win 10.

"Eighteen months ago I didn’t think that I was ever going to be in a Cup car again. Strapping in for the Daytona 500 didn’t even seem real, let alone winning the championship" Kyle Larson

“The competition is pretty fierce. I’m not saying it’s any harder today than it was back when Jeff or Jimmie won, but… I’m just surprised that Kyle and Cliff [Daniels, his crew chief] gelled as quickly as they did.

“You hope that you can be competitive. You hope you can run well. I think we worked really hard when the 1LE Camaro came out. We were behind with the original car. But the 1LE put us in the ballgame. We started running well and winning with that car.”

Larson too admits he never saw this day coming, especially from where he was after being fired from his Ganassi ride.

“Eighteen months ago I didn’t think that I was ever going to be in a Cup car again,” admits Larson.

“Strapping in for the Daytona 500 didn’t even seem real, let alone winning the championship. No, it’s definitely been a journey, a roller coaster. But I’m very thankful for my second chance and every opportunity I’ve been given in these last 18 months.

“Life is a crazy thing, and you’ve just got to stay positive through it all, and everything will hopefully work out for you.”

Hendrick already had a championship-contending car, but how did Larson and Daniels gel so quickly? It’s their relationship that’s crucial to the outcome. With Larson being new to both him and the team, Daniels needed to discover what made him tick.

Daniels reveals that Larson’s extracurricular activities of week-night racing across America’s short tracks gave him the chance to better understand his driver – especially important given the paucity of practice sessions during this COVID-19-era of racing.

“I took it upon myself to consider myself the weak link between the two of us,” says Daniels, who knew little of the dirt-track world. “I needed to learn the discipline of dirt racing and get to know Kevin Rumley, who was his late model crew chief, get to know Paul Silva, his sprint car crew chief, which I’m very thankful I got to know both of those guys.

“I went to late model races, I went to midget races, I went to sprint car races just to learn that discipline to understand the language that they speak and to understand when he says that racing three or four nights a week makes him better. What does that mean? What does that look like?

“I was getting so much information from him about himself, like… he was up front every night, and if he got beat by somebody on a restart, he would tell me what he did wrong. And it would help me learn what he needed to look for out of himself and out of the car, whether dirt or pavement or any series moving forward.

“So that information to me was really invaluable because I don’t know how else I would have gotten it.”

And here’s another key part of this equation. It’s fair to say the NASCAR community raised an eyebrow when Larson said he’d continue with his non-Cup activities, when previously Hendrick had barred drivers from doing so – most notably in recent years, Kasey Kahne, who was from a similar background. During his break from NASCAR in 2020, Larson crammed in as many dirt oval races as possible, winning 46. This year, he trimmed it down, but still won some major events in that sphere.

“This year I raced so many different types of cars,” enthuses Larson. “I was able to win a marquee event in each of the cars that I raced, the Chili Bowl and the BC39 in midget, Kings Royal, Knoxville Nationals in a sprint car, the Prairie Dirt Classic in a dirt late model, and a handful of big wins in the Cup Series. And to top it off with a Cup Series championship.”

Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Camaro Freightliner

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

To truly appreciate the significance of this, let’s turn the clock back a decade. A 19-year-old Larson was then seeking his NASCAR break on the back of vast success on dirt. He would sign a development deal with Ganassi “after a 20-minute meeting” at the end of 2011.

But earlier that very same day, he’d visited Hendrick Motorsports and came away feeling less than thrilled about the organisation which would steer him to title glory further down the line…

“I was like star struck a little bit to be at Hendrick Motorsports and getting to be there with Jeff,” recalls Kyle. “I remember him showing me around the shop. Then we sat down in his office, and Jeff Gordon is such an awesome race car driver and one I’ve looked up to since I was a little toddler.

“I remember being so disappointed when I left there because everybody knows I love dirt racing, and he’s like, ‘You really need to get out of dirt cars. They’re going to teach you bad habits’ and this and that. And I was like… man… that was a terrible time!

"Not only is he one of the greatest talents in the world currently, but I think he’s now set himself at a level where people can consider him an incredibly smart racer. I think that was the difference at the end" Cliff Daniels, Kyle Larson's crew chief 

“I’d met with every team and I was disappointed every time I left the race shop because it was like they were just going through the motions: nice to meet you, you’ve got a cool resume, yeah, we need a few hundred thousand dollars for you to race our car next year. Then, when I met with Chip, I was feeling on top of the world!

“I joke with Jeff about my trip to Hendrick that day, and he tells me about kind of the behind-the-scenes conversations he had with Rick after that. They had Chase, kind of already worked on signing him up at that point when I met with them.

“It all worked out in the end. I got to get experience and they didn’t have to pay for any of it before I got to them!”

Fast-forward to Sunday’s winner-takes-all title decider. There are 31 laps to go at Phoenix, Larson is mired in fourth place, four seconds away from the lead. All his rivals are running ahead of him, and his car just won’t fire off the corners like theirs are doing. With his hopes fading, Daniels comes on the radio and says: “I just watched a brake rotor explode on the front straightaway.”

The caution, to retrieve the errant debris from David Starr’s machine, gave the #5 a last chance to get Larson where he needed to be. In the final pitstop of the season, his pitcrew vaulted Larson into the lead thanks to their second-fastest wheel change of the season and the stall selection at the end of pitroad, which he earned via qualifying fastest.

Erik Jones, Richard Petty Motorsports, Chevrolet Camaro Rellevate, Austin Dillon, Richard Childress Racing, Chevrolet Camaro Dow Coatings, Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Camaro HendrickCars.com, Ryan Newman, Roush Fenway Racing, Ford Mustang Castrol GTX Full Synthetic

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

“I am familiar with what he needs to be comfortable in a car, and unfortunately we did not give him that for most of the race,” admits Daniels. “We were the third- or the fourth-place car for most of the day. We had to make a lot of adjustments.

“There was a wrench in the window every single pitstop. We did every spectrum of air pressure that you could try – even one by accident that helped us.

“In the final pitstop, the guys had an amazing stop, all four tyres had different air pressure, it was a track bar change and tape [on the nose, to add downforce], and they still won the race off pitroad, so that was pretty cool. Our car held off everyone in the field for the final run of the race. I made a lot of adjustments to do that because I knew what he needed.

“Not only is he one of the greatest talents in the world currently, but I think he’s now set himself at a level where people can consider him an incredibly smart racer. I think that was the difference at the end.”

When asked to put his season in context, Larson replies: “It’s just wild. I didn’t know that we would have a season like this. With Chase winning last year, I knew we would be strong, but I didn’t think that we would ever win double-digit races in the Cup Series and win the championship, winning half the playoff races.

“I thought when Tony Stewart won half of the playoff races in the year that he won the championship, I was like, that’ll never be done again. For me to match him on that, the laps led, the wins, the top fives, and all the wins outside of Cup racing – I never thought racing for Hendrick Motorsports that I would get to race a single dirt race in a year, let alone as many as I have this year.

“It’s definitely an unbelievable season on so many different levels.”

Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Camaro HendrickCars.com, pit stop

Photo by: John Harrelson / NKP / Motorsport Images

And here’s how Larson’s success impacts the history books: The title is Hendrick Motorsports’ 14th, extending its record in both driver and owner standings. It has won 14 of the last 27 Cup titles, putting its win rate at over 50%. It also extended its series-most race win tally to 280.

Larson is NASCAR’s 35th Cup champion, and the seventh of the elimination-style format. He scored 10 victories, plus the All-Star race, and five of his victories came during the playoffs – tying Stewart’s feat from 2011.

“I want to try to keep him — I hope [Kyle] retires with me,” says Hendrick when asked about their future together. “I really like our line-up right now. I like just the chemistry between the four drivers. That’s important, that they get along. Of course they want to beat each other, but I’ve got a lot invested in William, Chase, Alex and Kyle. I hope we can keep the band together because we’ve got such a good core working together.

“I can’t emphasise enough, you don’t hear any friction between our guys and our crew chiefs. They really work well together. To me that’s what makes an organisation work – all the people really pulling together.”

And with NASCAR’s Next Gen era poised to reset the rules of the game, it’s that approach that Hendrick will aim to springboard into a new era of domination.

Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Camaro HendrickCars.com, Victory Lane

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images