NASCAR’s Kyle Larson said the N-word. Does he deserve the second chance he’s getting?
Kyle Larson is going to get a second chance in NASCAR, after a six-month exile for using the N-word.
It’s fair to debate whether Larson suffered enough for this awful mistake. He’s coming back with a better job than the one from which he got fired.
But there’s no debate about this:
Almost always, people should get a second chance.
In this case, Kyle Larson should get one, too.
I’ve gotten a second chance before in life. You probably have, too. Rick Hendrick — Larson’s new employer with Hendrick Motorsports — certainly has.
There are horrendous criminal acts that a person can never come all the way back from. Murder. Child molestation. I’m sure you can come up with more.
But to me, saying the N-word once in a public forum isn’t an unforgivable offense.
Larson is on an apology tour now, trying to rehabilitate his image after using the racial slur in April during an esports racing event. He said all the right things in a 50-minute press conference I listened to Thursday, seemingly repentant and willing to fall on the sword as many times as it took.
When I asked him why he used the word in the first place, Larson replied: “Me just being ignorant and stupid, really.”
Larson’s exile has included a lot of education and interaction with Black youth and adults around America — mostly listening, he said. As he wrote on his website in early October: “It was past time for me to shut up, listen and learn.”
One of the odder parts of this story has always been that Larson has seen discrimination firsthand before for years. He’s half-Japanese, the son of an interracial couple who got ugly stares. During World War II, his maternal grandparents were held in an internment camp.
Larson’s family had a personal history with discrimination. And he said the N-word, anyway. There’s no excuse. He destroyed his reputation with a single word — directed casually at a white person who was his spotter for the virtual “race.”
“I definitely didn’t think that I would get another opportunity in NASCAR,” Larson said.
‘NASCAR will say he’s healed’
In April, just a few days after Larson used the racial slur, I spoke to Humpy Wheeler.
Wheeler, the retired racing executive who ran Charlotte Motor Speedway for 33 years, predicted to me that Larson would return to NASCAR Cup racing.
“Kyle Larson will be back in NASCAR,” Wheeler said. “He’s too good. He puts race cars in places that others can’t, and everyone knows that. He’ll take the sensitivity training and then NASCAR will say: ‘He’s healed!’ There’s just one thing, though: He’s going to have to find a sponsor.”
That remains true. Hendrick said Thursday that Larson’s team doesn’t have a sponsor yet, and whoever comes aboard will have to understand that while Larson is no longer radioactive, he’s still controversial. Hendrick understood that as he reached out to Larson (who was quickly fired by Chip Ganassi Racing and dropped by his major sponsors following the racial slur) first as a friend and then as a possible employee.
“I had to be careful,” Hendrick said. “You know I wouldn’t do something that would hurt our company. Our name. Our brand. And so that was important to me. ... But he just laid his heart out for everybody. ... I think it takes a man to admit, ‘Hey, I did something terrible. And I want to make it right.’ ”
NASCAR has long struggled with race and diversity issues in a sport that is still almost all white. Larson’s punishment has been tricky for the sport’s sanctioning body to navigate, too, and he only recently became eligible for reinstatement to drive again in the Cup series in 2021.
Larson, 28, has finished in the top 10 in nearly half his Cup starts, and his potential seems limitless. That elite ability — one that can make a lot of people a lot of money — also undoubtedly helped to fast-track his return.
J.A. Adande, formerly of ESPN, is now the director of sports journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He said he believed Larson should get another shot.
“Larson has shown remorse, he’s paid a price and it’s not like there were no repercussions at all,” Adande said in our interview Thursday. “You can see progress from him. This, to me, was really more about insensitivity than evil intent. The idea is to discourage the offensive behavior and that happened. I feel like he got punished and now should get a second chance.”
‘I don’t feel like I got a raw deal’
On the other side of the coin, the Charlotte Hornets fired radio announcer John Focke in September after he unintentionally typed the N-word into a tweet while attempting to write the word “Nuggets.”
It’s unclear when or if Focke will get another job with an NBA franchise. Focke at least could reasonably say his mistake was unintentional — there was a two-letter difference between the word he typed and the word he told me he meant to type. Larson was actually caught on tape saying the word; there was no dispute.
In any event, I think Focke should be able to work again one day in the broadcasting business, and I’m OK with Larson getting this chance as well.
“I was a good person before,” Larson said Thursday. “But I think I’ve had a lot of room to improve. And over these last six months, I think I’ve grown more than I had ever before. So I think I’m overall a better person. A better husband. A better father.”
Larson hasn’t stopped racing. He instead dropped to the sport’s lower levels over the summer, dominating on numerous dirt tracks in a predictable way since it was like sending “Mickey Mantle to the minors,” as Wheeler put it in April.
When he met fans at those events, Larson said, they often told him he had gotten a “raw deal” by getting fired from his job for saying the N-word.
“But I don’t feel like I got a raw deal at all,” Larson said. “I fully believe that the way it was handled was the right way. That’s what I tell everybody.”
While most NASCAR drivers seem to believe Larson should get a second chance, the 28-year-old driver said he knows that some people don’t.
“I think it’s something that takes time,” Larson said. “As they get to spend more time around me or get to see what I’m doing off the racetrack and get to really learn who I am — I think that’s when the forgiveness will be there, and people will have a more open mind to forgive me.”
Hendrick understands second chances
Hendrick isn’t perfect, either. In 1997, the longtime auto dealer and NASCAR team owner was sentenced in a Honda bribery scandal after pleading guilty to one count of mail fraud.
“I’ve come to realize that what I did was wrong and I accept responsibility for that,” Hendrick said in court in 1997. He was fined $250,000 and sentenced to home confinement for 12 months while also battling leukemia, which is now in remission. For that year, Hendrick was also banished from running both his NASCAR operation and his car business.
Hendrick rebounded nicely, returning to the sport and receiving a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton in 2000. In NASCAR circles, Hendrick is now the beloved “Mr. H,” a NASCAR Hall of Famer who runs a multi-car team that is arguably the sport’s gold standard.
Hendrick will undoubtedly persuade someone to sponsor Larson’s No. 5 car, too. Larson couldn’t have landed in a better place.
“I’m very, very, very thankful for this opportunity,” Larson said, “and I’m definitely going to make the most of it. And hopefully make everybody proud.”
He’d better. Because Larson has to know this as well: He won’t get a third chance.
