Of Kyle Larson’s 32 wins in the NASCAR Cup Series, three have come solely at Bristol Motor Speedway, and those victories arrived dominantly. Of his last three outings on the track, he has won the checkered flag twice, and across 19 starts, he has finished eight races on the layout inside the top five and 13 within the top ten. For that, Larson points to his dirt racing pedigree as the reason for his success.
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Short track racing has experienced a downturn in the Next Gen era. When drivers like Larson command 411 of 500 laps or 462 of 500 laps, the spectacle becomes tedious for spectators. Beyond that, the Next Gen car’s parity fails to provide sufficient momentum for overtaking on such compact circuits.
The moment drivers accelerate to gather speed, a left-hand turn comes up, forcing them to brake aggressively to avoid wrecking themselves or colliding with the wall while managing the aerodynamic force. But The whole scene has overwhelmingly worked in Larson’s favor. Across his last 13 starts at Bristol Motor Speedway, Larson has never qualified below the top ten, save for two occasions in 2023 and 2019.
The combination of track characteristics and Next Gen machinery has naturally played into his hands. Addressing the catalyst behind this dominance, Larson explained his affinity for the venue on the Out of Bounds podcast. “Bristol would be my favorite. Just half a mile, small track, high banking, really fast-paced the whole time, just really intense. It’s a lot of fun…”
“I think that’s why (background in dirt racing) I enjoy it, and I adapted to it well is just because it’s the most similar to dirt racing to me than any other track we go to just that intensity and high pace,” he stated.
Larson’s career in dirt racing, where surfaces transform lap by lap, enables him to anticipate how the Bristol surface will evolve and find traction where competitors cannot. The high-banked, half-mile configuration of Bristol mirrors the sensation and intensity of a dirt sprint car contest that the Hendrick Motorsports driver has been a pro at, where split-second decision-making proves necessary to navigate traffic.
Similar to locating grip on a changing dirt track, Larson frequently employs a “diamond technique” at Bristol, a specialized racing line he routinely utilizes to overtake slower cars and generate momentum that allows him to negotiate a corner with a diamond-shaped trajectory rather than a traditional, consistent arc, entering high and exiting low, to preserve speed and execute passes, a skill he sanded from driving dirt sprint cars.
