INDIANAPOLIS – Kyle Larson spent May trying to become the second driver to complete 1,100 miles of racing in a single day.
Rain in Indianapolis and Charlotte washed your big dream.
Now, the 2021 NASCAR champion is back in town for the first time since finishing his first Indianapolis 500 with a new vision, a new challenge and a new appreciation for the track’s historic 2.5-mile oval.
“Up to this point, I haven’t really thought about the 500 and what it will mean this week or if I’ll have a different perspective when I get there,” Larson said before Sunday’s Brickyard 400. “Everyone there went from being the easiest to get away from the competition.”
Larson’s mission this week is more than logistics and aesthetics.
He has only one victory since I finished the 500June 9 in Sonoma, California, and Larson has only one top-five finish in his last five races – a fourth in New Hampshire.
Things have gotten even worse over the past two weeks for the California native. The world’s most versatile driver finished 39th at Chicago and 13th at Pocono, leaving him second in the Cup standings – three points behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR champion.
It’s not just near the top either.
Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin trail Elliott by just 15 and 20 points and William Byron, another Hendrick driver, enters this weekend in fifth.
While some believe Larson’s experience earlier this year in IndyCar could give him a leg up on the competition when the Brickyard returns to the traditional oval NASCAR ran 200-mile races after three years on the track’s route, Larson downplays the notion.
The only free practice session is scheduled for Friday afternoon, with qualifying scheduled for Saturday, a far cry from the weeklong six-hour free practice sessions and two days of qualifying that Larson had before the 500 meters.
“Even though the IndyCar and Cup cars look similar, it’s different in the fact that in IndyCar you’re racing wide open,” he said. “We will lift in all the curves of the stock car and still, I think we will feel the weight there (in the curves) a lot. I think the line will be similar, but it will be similar to what it was with the previous generation car. So no, I don’t think the laps I did in IndyCar really mean anything this weekend.”
Indianapolis has not been kind to Larson over the years.
In Brickyard’s nine career starts, he has just two top-fives, with a career-best third coming in 2021, his first road race. On the oval, his best result was fifth place in 2016.
Changing series didn’t help much either. An impressive qualifying weekend allowed Larson to start fifth in May, but he was demoted to 18th, in part because of a pit lane speed violation. The four-hour rain delay in Indianapolis caused him to arrive late in Charlotte, where he failed to record a lap in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600.
He considered it one of the most disappointing days he had ever experienced.
Although Larson’s busy schedule has allowed him to put most of these bad memories aside, one concern remains.
“I’m still worried about the weather because we’re supposed to leave for Italy on Monday, so we don’t need rain,” Larson said.
Luckily for Larson, the weekend forecast looks perfect. High temperatures are expected to be in the 80s, with rain chances below 10% all three days.
The weather won’t be the only big difference as Larson drives through the track’s tunnel.
While many Cup drivers believe a return to the oval track will restore the race’s prestige and the elimination of the NASCAR-IndyCar duo again gives Cup teams the exclusive stage, Larson knows the atmosphere won’t be the same, even in front of one of the biggest audiences of the series.
“I’ve always understood how big the Indianapolis 500 is,” he said. “But it was really incredible to see how big it was from start to finish, with over 350,000 people in attendance. So, also, I appreciate the facility every time I go there, I appreciate it more and more because it is the most beautiful facility we visited on the schedule.”
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