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“I Crash There Almost Every Time”: Why Kyle Larson is Intimidated by the ROVAL Despite 2021 Win

Nilavro Ghosh
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"I Crash There Almost Every Time": Why Kyle Larson is Intimidated by the ROVAL Despite 2021 Win

On his way to becoming the NASCAR Cup Series champion in 2021, Kyle Larson had conquered the Charlotte Roval. However, he doesn’t feel confident about racing on the track. Yung Money knows he will be fast on race day but controlling the car will be a problem.

The Next-Gen car is not the same as the one in which he won the 2021 Roval race. Larson believes that he doesn’t have a good feel for the track in this car.

Apart from that one win in 2021, Larson never finished inside the top 10 at this track. He believes he makes too many mistakes and crashes, which has made the track intimidating for the Cup Series favorite this season.

Thankfully, he will be going into the race with a 52-point cushion to the round of 8 cutline so he can take it easy on Sunday.

“The Roval is intimidating to me in general just because…I don’t know, we won there but at least in the Next-Gen era I feel like I don’t have a good feel for it, it’s really bumpy and I just feel super on edge. I’ve crashed there almost every time I’ve been there, we’ve been fast but crashed,” the 2021 Cup Series champion said.

Larson had also revealed that the part of the track where he crashed the most at the Roval was being taken away for this year’s race. That can help him perform better here.

It will be interesting to see how he runs there on Sunday, considering that he will primarily be looking to just finish the race in a decent position.

Yung Money gives his take on new turn 7 hairpin

Some changes have been made to the Roval track, especially at turn 7. A hairpin has been introduced there and everyone knows that these things are as narrow as it gets. The Cup Series cars are massive so going through a narrow hairpin can cause several issues. There could be a pile-up if cars are running close to one another.

However, it can also be seen as a potential passing area. When asked how he viewed turn, Yung Money said that it could cause chaos and prove to be a good place to pass at the same time.

“I definitely think that it is a potential passing and chaos area. So I had to do some post-Kansas stuff this weekend on the sim really briefly and I got to run the Roval for 30 or so… That corner extremely tight and you have to slow down so much and like open your entry a ton and it’s coming off a right-hander so it would be really easy to kind of pop out and shove your nose in there on somebody,” he explained.

It seems like he will get through to the next round and that’s when things will get interesting. Las Vegas, Homestead, and Martinsville have all been good tracks for Larson and he will be a force to reckon with in those races. However, one bad run could put him in a desperate spot.

Post Edited By:Srijan Mandal

About the author

Nilavro Ghosh

Nilavro Ghosh

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Nilavro is a NASCAR journalist at The SportsRush. His love for motorsports began at a young age with F1 and spread out to other forms of racing like NASCAR and Moto GP. After earning his post-graduate degree from the Asian College of Journalism in 2020, he has mostly worked as a motorsports journalist. Apart from covering racing, his passion lies in making music primarily as a bass player.

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