There’s an old saying in horse racing that if your ride throws you, you need to get back on again as soon as you can.
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Given last Sunday’s embarrassing debacle in the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 Double, that saying is quite appropriate for Kyle Larson in this Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Nashville Superspeedway.
It’ll be a long, long time — if ever — before Larson or his fans (and chuckling non-fans, for that matter) will forget Larson’s terrible showing in The Double.
Coming off a restart with newly installed cold tires, Larson made an absolutely rookie mistake, gunning his car, leading to an uncontrollable spin and a crash that not only knocked Larson out of the 500 (finished 27th), it also ended the so-called Greatest Spectacle In Racing for two other drivers.
While Larson couldn’t wait to get out of Indianapolis fast enough and get to Charlotte for the NASCAR nightcap, hoping for immediate redemption, such would unfortunately not be the case for him.
Sure, he led 34 laps (third-most among all drivers), but he also brushed the wall early in the race and then was collected in yet another crash with just over 150 laps left to go, ending his nightcap as prematurely as he did in the daytime half of the doubleheader.
Larson ultimately finished even worse at Charlotte than he did at Indy, with a 37th-place showing in the 40-car field.
The question now is whether Larson can quickly rebound from this past Sunday’s embarrassment.
Going back to that earlier horse racing analogy, getting back on his 750 horses in Sunday’s race is the exact medicine the doctor ordered for Larson. And by coincidence, he could not have picked a better place to do so than Nashville, where in four career Cup starts, Larson has never finished lower than eighth.
He won NASCAR’s return to Nashville in 2021, was fourth in 2022, fifth in 2023, and eighth last year. He obviously likes the 1.333-mile oval and it likes him back. Something that doesn’t seem to be the case at least for now with Indianapolis and Charlotte.
Will Larson’s Past — Not Just About Last Weekend — Come Back to Haunt Him at Nashville?
But there’s a caveat – and I really hate to bring this up.
Earlier in his Cup career, particularly when he previously drove for Chip Ganassi, Larson had a reputation where if he had a real bad finish, he’d oftentimes wind up with another one, two, or sometimes even three additional bad finishes in a row before he finally snapped out of the doldrums with a good finish.
Don’t believe me? Check out Larson’s 379-race Cup history.
More often than not, the original bad finish that led to those one or more additional bad finishes afterward, the inconsistency and even questioning his ability and confidence were topics that fans debated frequently.
That’s what worries me about Sunday’s race. After such a devastating showing at both Indy and Charlotte — arguably the worst day ever in Larson’s racing career — it would not be surprising if his confidence has also taken a dip.
Sure, if he wins Sunday, everything will be forgiven and forgotten for the most part.
But if he has lost even an ounce of confidence in his ability because of The Double debacle, Larson may not recover until the playoffs begin 14 races from now.
All I can say is this: thank goodness his three wins thus far this season have him locked into the playoffs. Because if he had not won even one Cup race up to this point in 2025, The Double debacle may have kept him out of victory lane the rest of the season.
