Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway was anything but normal. While some would say it was different and perhaps even fun, Kyle Larson summed up his experience in a few words: “super-chaotic, really weird.” The Hendrick Motorsports icon was clueless about why the race panned out the way it did. Needless to say, he admitted that he would not choose to race like that ever again.
Advertisement
“It was weird to have to manage and guess on how hard to run, guess how each run was going to play out, you were constantly in traffic, managing distance to people in front and behind,” he explained. “So like, the strategy side of that and the driver seat was kind of fun but I would never want to do it again.”
Larson’s golf buddy and race winner Denny Hamlin agreed with what Larson said about the “strategy side”. “This is the first time the driver played a huge role in a long, long time,” said the 7-time Pocono champ after picking up his 52nd career win. “It’s a different philosophy from what we’re used to, which is everyone just kind of on the gas all the time running the bottom. Technique was a huge deal today.”
“I don’t really know how that happened,” Larson revealed the nature of his top-5 finish
The #5 Chevy was among the top six cars during the opening laps of the final stage. However, his team got slammed with a pit road penalty for equipment interference, which sent the Elk Grove native to the back of the pack (28th) for the last restart on lap 380. But thankfully, Larson managed to gain positions and finish the race on the lead lap.
However, Larson was not sure how he did that. “Must have just made good time through that sequence and somehow cycled out to finish fifth. I don’t really know how that happened but it was weird,” he smirked sheepishly.
“Track wasn’t laying any rubber down. You kind of had to just ride because it was just wearing through the rubber and the tires,” he complained. Larson felt like had he not been slammed with the penalty, he would have done an even better job of managing his ride, just like Hamlin and the guys up front did.
