Kyle Larson is in peak form as his Month of May ramps up

It’s not quite the perfect game in baseball parlance or a perfect quarterback racing in football but Kyle Larson delivered the reasonably closest thing possible on Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

Pole
Stage 1 win
Stage 2 win
Fastest lap
Race win

As such, Larson is the first to score a 61-point race in the current era with the addition of a bonus marker for posting that fastest lap and now enters the Indianapolis 500 the next two weeks as the Cup Series championship leader.

“I just think (that is) really cool,” Larson said. “I think it’s good for our team. I think it’s good for our sport. I think it’s good for racing that the Cup Series point leader is competing in the Indy 500 for the second year in a row.

“That was a goal of mine last year but I didn’t really think about it this year. But I do think it puts even more of a spotlight on us and our sport.

“I do think it’s really cool, and yeah, we had a great day, so great points day. Yeah, I look forward to the next couple weeks and then actually getting to race the (Coca-Cola) 600 and hopefully having the point lead after that one, too.”

It’s not just the Indianapolis 500 either as Larson will also balance his usual Sprint Car schedule alongside his NASCAR and IndyCar seat time.

And while conventional wisdom would lead some teams to want their drivers to focus on just their primary responsibilities, everyone in the orbit of Larson recognizes this is part of what makes him so great.

For example, Larson was involved in a somewhat ugly Sprint Car crash on Friday night and showed up to work on Saturday morning like nothing had happened and sat the No. 5 on the pole. Then came an equally impressive race day where Larson led a track record 221 laps of 267.

Remember, he also crashed an IndyCar at the Speedway last month too and has shrugged it off whenever asked about it.

“Maybe I’ve hit stuff enough, I have a short memory,” Larson said. “My memory has faded.

“I don’t know. I do think it’s because I race a lot, I’m guessing. I would say that that’s a big part of me being able to move on quickly from things, whether it’s a good race or a bad race or a wreck or good result, bad result, whatever. Mistakes on track.”

Hendrick Vice President of Competition Chad Knaus said those exact words even before Larson did on Sunday night.

“A very short memory is all I can think,” Knaus said. “He just goes and goes and goes. The thing that I’ve always been impressed with Kyle since he showed up at Hendrick Motorsports is that he is unfazed. Like nothing really gets under his skin. He doesn’t get wound up. He doesn’t get emotional about maybe something that happens on the racetrack.

“He doesn’t get emotional and carry weight on his shoulders — maybe they have a bad race or whatever it may be. He’s like water off a duck’s back. He just rolls with it and he goes and he continues to drive, and he loves racing.”

It’s certainly easy to love right now.

He has Cliff Daniels engineering all of his Cup Series success in the same way that he has the equally talented Paul Silva spearheading his Sprint Car program. Larson has no shortage of brilliance around him in the McLaren Racing IndyCar paddock.

Daniels says he and Larson work because they have that same shared passion for racing. Remember that Daniels is a former Late Model Stock driver turned engineer, who win not working on his Cup cars, is watching racing of some kind too.

“We don’t even really talk much during the week,” Daniels said. “But I try to watch every single lap that he runs, Xfinity, truck, of course sprint car, anything else, and we’ll maybe share a text quickly back and forth depending on how his night went. Normally I’m telling him ‘good job.’ This week I was asking ‘are you okay.’

“But we love the sport. We love attacking races, figuring out ways to get better, ways to be faster. We both enjoy the way we build our team, the way our team interacts and we communicate.”

Now Larson has eclipsed the 10,000 laps led mark in the Cup Series, 6,860 coming with Daniels at Hendrick Motorsports, in addition to their 26 wins and 2021 championship.

“Yeah, I think the only thing I would add would be that we both just have a lot of trust in each other,” Larson said. “I trust that nobody works harder than Cliff and the 5 team, and I think he knows that although I’m not at the shop all the time, that’s me — he’s trusting me that I’m working to be the best race car driver I can be.

“Allowing me to go race all the time and be as crazy busy as I am is only going to benefit us on the weekends. Yeah, it’s been pretty amazing since 2021 and joining the 5 team all the success we’ve had and all of that. Yeah, to surpass 10,000 laps is really cool, honestly, and they said that we’ve led the most laps at Kansas Speedway now. Yeah, really cool day.”

What could’ve been

Despite the dominance executed by the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 team up front, there was no shortage of could have been challengers thwarted by misfortune or mistakes in equal parts.

For example, there was Josh Berry, who drove through the field twice from 38th but shouldn’t have needed to due to a qualifying incident and a pit road speeding penalty after he worked his way into the top five.

At the time of the penalty, Daniels had just told Larson that he felt the Wood Brothers No. 21 was on par with them and driving back to a sixth place result was evidence of that.

Berry had the seventh fastest car in terms of pure speed according to Racing Insights and was 10th in passing and second in defense according to the statistical platform.

Meanwhile, Brad Keselowski looked like there was a potential to wake up from an absolute nightmare start to a season to have it be revealed as a nightmare within a nightmare scenario.

Keselowski had driven up to second place, from his 36th starting spot, when his right rear tire failed on Lap 195, drilled the wall, and needed to be towed back to the garage area where he would remain the rest of the day.

On one hand, the car had speed and was chasing Larson down right before the tire lost pressure, but that also might have been the decision making of crew chief Jeremy Bullins in that low PSI means greater speed but at the risk of such failure.

So now, Keselowski is still looking for his first top 10 of the season and is 33rd in the championship standings with teammates challenging for wins every other week.

This was the most despondent the 2011 champion had looked upon leaving the race track in quite a long time.

Example: Even in his most disappointed state, Keselowski is always good to make time for media questions but leaving the infield care center on Sunday, he was practically at a loss for words.

What happened?
“Cut a tire entering Turn 1, hit the wall.”

Was there any warning?
“Not really, just a big boom.”

Moral victory?
“Absolutely. Keep putting ourselves in positions like that, that’s how we win races. I felt like, this is a pretty significant leap from where we were last year. There are some pieces that are starting to click and maybe not getting the results but showing the potential.”

What are the emotions?
“Go win the Coke 600.”

And then there was Chase Elliott, the driver that actually took the lead from Larson on pit road but also retained it head to head late in the race, until a slow pit stop dropped him 14 positions.

It wasn’t just the clean air that made Elliott look like a potential winner. According to Racing Insights, Elliott was the seventh best passer on Sunday, third best defender and had the fifth fastest car.

Denny Hamlin also looked to have a top five threat until a clutch issue eventually derailed his day.

“Yeah, I think eventually just broke the transaxle trying to leave the stall there,” Hamlin said. “Unfortunate for the Progressive Toyota team. Really fast again – just can’t keep it together right now.”

Anecdotes

It wasn’t a super eventful race in terms of chaos or carnage but there were a pair of notable crashes including one that affected playoff contender Bubba Wallace.

Making his season debut at 23XI Racing, Truck Series regular and top Toyota prospect Corey Heim appeared to drift up into Justin Haley, sending him into Erik Jones running up against the wall and collecting Austin Dillon and Wallace.

Of note, Dillon was seeking his fourth consecutive top-10 and Wallace was just ready to wash his hands of it.

“Not sure if the 67 (Corey Heim) got into somebody, and I just tried to hang a left and stay in the gas and I got clipped in the right rear,” Wallace said. “It’s unfortunate. I hate it. It all stems back from our penalty earlier on. We tried so hard to fight back but it wasn’t meant to be. We had a lot of confidence coming into this race. Felt good about it yesterday, but just not our day. Not our last couple of weeks, but Happy Mother’s Day. Excited to get back home to see my wife and our baby boy and focus on that.”

Heim wasn’t entirely sure he could have done something differently.

“I don’t know who I wiped out there, and I don’t want to destroy any race cars, but I feel like I was squeezed there,” Heim said. “My goal was just to get down to the bottom and I saw (John Hunter Nemechek) peeking inside of me, and when you have someone on your left rear fender, it makes you tight and I had to flinch and caused a big wreck.

“I’d like to think I didn’t do anything wrong but I also haven’t seen it yet. I guess we’ll see.”

Still, Heim finished a company best 13th in his season debut, and was generally pleased with his progress learning the radically different NextGen car.

“I think from the very beginning I was trying to settle in,” Heim said. “Such a different experience than my Truck Series regular style driving. Such a different approach with aero balance and trying to find clean air and trying to get grip. It is tough. We are at the top level, and I had to settle in. It has been about a year since I drove one of these things.

“First stage was messy to say the least. I went a lap down, but the team stuck with me and made really good adjustments, and we climbed back through the field all day. We kind of just made consistent steps forward. I’m super proud of everyone at 23XI, Toyota – very thankful for Robinhood for coming on board. The Robinhood Neon looked great out there running top-15 at the end. Just proud of the consistent progress, and team definitely stuck with me in the first stage. It wasn’t pretty on my part, but grateful for everyone believing in me and grateful for the opportunity.”

Five laps into the race, AJ Allmendinger’s engine expired and he keyed up his vicious displeasure towards Earnhardt Childress Engines.

“Hey ECR, you guys fucking suck,” and “I mean, what the fuck, you guys,” before dropping a string of f-bombs for good measure.

Allmendinger has been a surprise playoff contender through the first 12 races but fell to 40 points out of a provisional Round of 16 spot due to the early exit.