Kyle Larson won his second NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2025 and firmly cemented his ongoing legacy as one of the greatest drivers of the current generation. Apart from the heaps of accolades that he has gathered, what gains major attention is his ability to race in different disciplines and find quick success in all of them. But there’s a glaring void in this clout he enjoys.
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The Hendrick Motorsports driver figures out a solution to almost every trick that is thrown his way. But what keeps him running loops without end is superspeedway racing. His career stats at the Daytona International Speedway and the Talladega Superspeedway, two of NASCAR’s biggest venues, became a topic of fan discussion on X recently. The thread contained some interesting reactions.
Across 45 starts at these iconic tracks, Larson has zero wins, three top-5 finishes, 11 top-10 finishes, and 15 DNFs. These are amazingly low numbers for a driver of his caliber. One fan wrote, “This is the sole reason I think Bell and Byron are better drivers. They are more versatile.” Be that as it may, Christopher Bell and William Byron aren’t Cup Series champions, nor do they have the popularity that Larson has.
Another fan simply claimed, “Overrated.” But not everyone was as harsh as this. One comment read, “These races are a joke now. They don’t reward skill. These stats have no bearing on how great a driver he is.” Luck plays a major role in superspeedway races. A driver could get caught in an accident that he had nothing to do with and foil any good chances of visiting victory lane.
Overrated
— Blake Sterling ☠️ (@BMST199) December 27, 2025
The same has happened with Larson multiple times. A fan pointed out, “Could’ve made his 1st Talladega win this year if he didn’t run out of fuel. Hope he gets one soon.” Fuel conservation has become a crucial strategy in superspeedway racing in the Next Gen era. While fans and some drivers might not be too fond of it, that’s how the game is played now.
Being the competitor he is, Larson doesn’t simply want to discard his superspeedway results as the product of bad luck. He told the press early this year, “It’s easy to say that speedway racing comes down to luck, but it’s the same guys that are winning all the time.” He pointed to the Team Penske drivers, his teammate William Byron, and others to show that they have things figured out while he hasn’t.
It remains to be seen if Larson can iron out this one chink in his otherwise solid armor as the 2026 season of racing inches closer, more so with the biggest race of the year, the opening Daytona 500, upcoming in February.
