Former NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson will attempt to cement his name in motorsports folklore this weekend as he takes on the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on the 31-year-old but as per Tony Stewart. Interestingly, the racing is not going to be the most taxing element of the weekend. It will be everything that comes with it, the traveling and the media.
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Stewart did the famed double in his younger days and from what he recalls, the attention can get to a driver and disrupt their concentration. It’s never easy to win a race, let alone two of the biggest ones on the same day. Pair that up with all the other responsibilities and a lengthy travel between Indianapolis and Charlotte and it’s the epitome of what a hectic day can look like.
“He’s a plug-and-play driver. You literally can plug him in and send him off and he’s going to be fine. I think it’s just mentally preparing him for what the day is going to be like is really going to be the challenge and how early it starts and how late it’s gonna end. Those variables are the things that are going to be literally the challenges,” the Cup Series champion said to NBC.
One of the challenges Stewart faced when he did the double was hunger. That does not sound like much but when you’re in a high-speed competition and your stomach bellows, you could lose concentration just like that.
Tony Stewart talks about his hunger issue during the Coca-Cola 600
As per a report in IndyStar, Smoke did not face many challenges when he ran the Indy 500. Although he did face an issue during the race. At the end of the day, motorsports is physically taxing and if your body doesn’t have the energy, you’re not going to have a good time in the car.
“I remember how bad I felt about 100 laps into the 400 laps in Charlotte. We were probably 150 miles into the race and I realized I was hungry, and it’s not like you can stop and pull through a drive-thru and get a sandwich, some fries, and a Coke and go on down the road. That was just one of the many variables that I didn’t know going into it and didn’t think about. I was so focused on just driving the race cars,” he said.
Nevertheless, Larson has had a lot of time to prepare and he hopes to be ready enough to tackle these obstacles head on. Will he be able to get through the weekend with flying colors? Only time will tell.
