Few drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series garage are as good as Kyle Larson when it comes to racing at tracks like Homestead-Miami, where running the wall is the fastest way around the track. In a press conference at Phoenix, the defending series champion, Joey Logano, recognized this ability and lauded the Hendrick Motorsports driver.
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Logano was asked what it takes to race so close to the fence and who is best at doing it currently. He answered, “You should ask Kyle Larson. He’s really, really, really good at it. Reddick’s gotten really good at it. Blaney is decent at it too. It’s not comfortable, I can tell you that much right now.”
Driving at high speeds an inch from the wall is not an easy task. The slightest of mistakes can put a driver into the wall and end his day. Logano noted that the risk was more prevalent with the older generation cars than it is now. This is because the fenders of the previous cars and their steel bodies did not allow a lot of room for error.
He continued, “You can just kind of smush it [the car] up against the wall every now and again [with the Next Gen car], and life’s okay as long as you don’t hit it that hard. We’ve seen those guys be able to get away with that, and they’ve been pretty strong because of it.” Interestingly, it wasn’t just the Next Gen car that helped Larson become an expert at this peculiar skill.
How Kyle Busch influenced Larson’s skill to ride the wall
Larson has one win and five top-5 finishes at Homestead-Miami. This record is owed, in part, to two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch. Back in 2012, when Larson was running in the K&N Series, he got the chance to race in the Craftsman Truck Series for four races, and one of them was at Homestead-Miami.
During the race, Busch signaled to Larson that he must be running higher up the track. Larson was in the top lane at the time but wasn’t quite close to the fence. He said in an interview last year, “So then I was like f**k it, I’m just going to enter on the fence and I was like damn, this is like… I’m wide open way before I’m starting four. I’m like, this is way easier.”
He passed Busch a few laps later. Since then, he has built up his talent and confidence to master the skill. As Joey Logano pointed out, few drivers can come close to matching him when it comes to riding the wall today.
