A lot has gone wrong in NASCAR playoffs for Kyle Larson. At Homestead, enough went right
Kyle Larson probably didn’t need a reminder of all he’d been through in these playoffs.
He battled through car troubles at Darlington. He finished 18th at Talladega. The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion was eliminated from playoff contention at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval two weeks ago — a place many assumed he’d be the favorite — and then didn’t finish his race at Las Vegas last weekend after getting tangled in an on-track conflict with Bubba Wallace that made national headlines.
But in a speech to his team before the race, Larson’s crew chief, Cliff Daniels, reminded the driver and the rest of the No. 5 team anyway.
“It was pretty colorful,” Daniels said of the pre-race talk. “I went through our playoffs and (pointed out) how many mistakes we had made since the start of our playoffs, and how many of those things had been in our hands, that we had control over. ...
“I told them that if we did our job, at our worst, we were going to be really good. And if we do our job at our best, we’re going to be great. That’s the window, from really good to great, if we just do our job.”
In a year that will be remembered for its unpredictability, Larson has seen a lot go wrong in this 2022 postseason.
But at last, on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, enough went right.
“We just needed a day to get it all right,” Daniels said. “And we finally did.”
To say Larson dominated on Sunday wouldn’t be an overstatement. The driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet had the fastest car, a disciplined pit crew and the unique talent and ambition to have his car hug those Homestead walls as tightly as he did on his way to leading 199 of the races 267 laps.
And, he got a bit lucky, too: On a late Stage 3 restart after a caution, during the only part of the race when Larson had to come from behind, the No. 19 car driven by Martin Truex Jr. spun out entering his pit stall on pit road — and that paved a way for Larson to pull away as he’d done for most of Sunday afternoon.
Those weren’t the only stars to align on Sunday, though, Larson said.
“We finally have a car strong enough for me,” Larson told reporters post-race, poking fun at himself for his aggressive driving habits.
The Next Gen car has been loudly criticized the past few weeks. Many of the drivers expressed that this car doesn’t “crunch” enough in certain spots, making it so the driver feels a wreck’s impact more than before. (It’s been a particular problem with two Cup drivers, Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman, suffering concussions from which neither has returned.)
But on Sunday, Larson was able to use the car’s durability to his advantage.
“I can get in the wall, and it’s not going to flatten your tire or mess up your aerodynamics,” he said. “So I got into the wall three or four times today, a decent amount, to where it would’ve been — with the old car — probably a pit stop. And that would’ve killed my race.
“So thankfully this car, I think, played into my favor a lot.”
Larson, with the win, has locked in his chance to help Hendrick Motorsports compete for the owner’s championship in Phoenix next month.
He hopes that enough can go right there, too.
“If I could have it one way or the other, I would rather be out on my end and be able to celebrate the team championship,” Larson said. “So I’m happy that we’ll be able to go compete for that again.”
This story was originally published October 24, 2022 at 11:10 AM.
