“I Was Gonna Clobber Him”: Kyle Larson Maintains Innocence After Chase Elliott’s Retaliation in Kansas

The Kansas race on Sunday was not the first time that the Hendrick Motorsports pair of Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott have locked horns against each other, with last season’s incident at Watkins Glen still in people’s minds. Fast forward to the recent race at Kansas, the pair once again ended up in a tense situation.

During the race, Elliott appeared to retaliate against Larson after believing that the latter intentionally hit him on pit road. Later on, after the race, Larson was questioned about the incident between the two, and he explained why the 2021 Cup Series champion had touched Elliott in the first place.

Kyle Larson unhappy with Chase Elliott incident at Kansas

Larson commented that he believed Elliott was upset in the heat of the moment. He admitted that he had not seen the replay of the incident but expected that both of them would have a better understanding of what had happened after watching it. The HMS driver stated that if he had done something wrong, such as not leaving enough space, he would have done things differently.

“I’m not sure if he was just trying to time it, or was sleeping a little bit. We just didn’t get a good launch at the top lane. Then I tried to poke through his outside and he blocked. Then I had a good enough run, so I cleared him through the middle.”

He later added, “It’s just a product of being three wide of pit road… The #6 car was pitted up in front of us. He was coming out of the stall. I’m just trying to leave everybody as much room as possible or that I can.”

“The #6 was going much slower as we were approaching him. So I was gonna clobber him if I didn’t move up a little bit. We made a slight contact and and all that,” Larson explained.

What happened between Larson and Chase Elliott?

The incident took place when both drivers were coming out of the pit road. Elliott and Hamlin had been rolling down side by side, and then Larson left his pits to join the other two. Around the same time, Brad Keselowski was also leaving his pit box.

However, since Keselowski had been slow to come off pit road, Larson almost rear-ended him. At the last moment, Larson moved up a little bit to avoid contacting Keselwoski, but at that moment he lightly tapped his teammate, Elliott.

After leaving the pit exit, Elliott appeared upset and retaliated against Larson by swerving his car back at him, expressing his disapproval of being hit by Larson. However, had Elliott been more aware of the situation, he would have realized that Larson’s actions were not intentional. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, the Dawsonville native reacted impulsively.