Over his years in the NASCAR Cup Series, Kyle Larson has proven to be one of the finer talents that can handle a race car irrespective of track surface. He won the Cup Series Championship in his first year with Hendrick Motorsports while also championing several dirt racing events in the same year. In fact, Larson has never shied away from the contributions of and his love for racing dirt. But there was a point in time when racing across so many disciplines might have been considered impossible for his current team.
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Recently, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his co-host Mike Davis met with Larson for a live interaction where Davis mentioned how they were all part of Hendrick Motorsports, considering Junior drove for them. Therefore, he wanted to know the secret behind Larson’s managing to convince Rick Hendrick to race in multiple dirt racing series, who was famous for not allowing his drivers to race in anything beyond NASCAR.
Kyle Larson shares how he convinced Rick Hendrick to race in dirt stuff
Responding to the question, Larson described. “I was super nervous. Obviously, everything happened to me and then I met Rick (Hendrick) and Jeff (Gordon) and we talked and talked. They’re like, what’s important to you? What do you want? And what do you want us to do if we sign you? I was like man, I would just like to race sprint cars…”
Thereafter Larson mentioned how he thought he was going to ruin his chances of getting into HMS by telling them he wanted to race sprint cars. He explained how the schedule used to be different back when Junior used to race full-time.
He added, “Back then, you were testing all the time. You were practicing on Fridays and Saturdays, racing Sundays. Now you have 20 minutes of practice if that. Like this, we can go to Talladega. We just qualify the race.”
“So I think that the teams are now seeing that it’s harder for your driver to stay sharp with limited track time. So I think it’s a way, obviously, it’s risky. It’s risky racing. Let your driver race sprint cars and dirt stuff and all that. But I think they see the upside of it. You know, staying sharp and racing all that. In 2021, my first year, Hendrick had obviously a really good for the championship, and I raced more that year than I ever have… So it’s gone good, I am appreciative of it for sure.”
Rick Hendrick had a strict driver policy against racing elsewhere
There was a time early on when team boss Rick Hendrick had a strict driver policy that prohibited them from racing in any other discipline. It was not just racing, Hendrick frowned upon, but any extracurricular activity was frowned upon. It was only during the 2021 season when Larson joined the team and won a championship for them that things began to change. That was apparently the turning point for Hendrick, who agreed with Larson’s decision to race across disciplines.
Later on, even his teammate Chase Elliott mentioned that banning drivers from dirt series and extracurriculars would be a detriment for Hendrick in the long run. Moreover, when there were incidents with Elliott missing several races this season due to a snowboarding incident, or Alex Bowman being out of the car due to a sprint race injury, Elliott mentioned that they were just unfortunate incidents and nothing to worry about.
Hendrick’s concern was valid considering how his drivers’ would impact the entirety of the season, with a non-NASCAR-related injury. But despite all of that, banning drivers from racing elsewhere was not going to help them. Thankfully, Hendrick understood that and made changes accordingly.
