If there’s one active driver who can be perceived as a genuine contender to Kyle Larson, it is Denny Hamlin. The Joe Gibbs Racing star is second-best in nearly every category of the stat board and one of the favorites to win the championship ahead of Larson. This threat that he poses can either be a boon or a curse for the Hendrick Motorsports driver. In Bristol last Saturday, it was the former.
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Larson’s wife, Katelyn Sweet, was a guest on a recent episode of NASCAR Daily with Shannon Spoke. Asked if she knew how dominant her husband was going to be in the Night Race, she revealed that she’d expected Hamlin to be the winner. She said, “I thought Denny would win the race prior to practice. I said, ‘Denny is really good under pressure and I think that actually kind of pissed him [Larson] off.’”
“So, maybe I lit a little fire under there. He was like, ‘No, he’s not going to win the race.’” Taking Katelyn’s words to heart, Larson went out to the short oval in his No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro and led a record-making 462 laps to grab winning honors. Hamlin settled for fourth place, unable to compete with the sheer skill and speed that Larson displayed over the 500-lapper.
Larson vs Hamlin is perhaps the biggest rivalry of the current era. It even won the fan choice award for the best rivalry fan in 2023. However, the drivers keep their enmity on the race track and carry quite the respect for each other off it. They’ve both now qualified for the Round of 12 and will continue their battle deep into the playoffs. Perhaps Katelyn has a larger role to play still.
How Larson and Hamlin dealt with the tire-surprise in Bristol
Nearly every driver on the field expected the Goodyear tires to have a high fall-off rate as they did during the spring race in Bristol. But the tires ended up lasting longer than they ought to have. This left many like Hamlin in a dilemma about how their strategies need to be altered.
The No. 11 team admitted after the race that their car had been tuned and adjusted to suit a heavy tire fall-off race and the turn of events damaged their result. This is where Larson was able to edge ahead of his competitors. The 2021 Cup Series champion had known as early as practice that the tires wouldn’t fall off easily.
He said in his post-race interview, “You’re visually scanning the race track. Looking for marbles and stuff. I didn’t see any. I was happy for sure.” Such little moves to eliminate mistakes are what make a champion. And in Bristol, Larson was more of one than Hamlin.
