Kyle Larson can score his seventh win of the season in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
AVONDALE, Ariz. — It may not be the storybook ending for Kyle Larson and his No. 5 team as the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season concludes with Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway.
Championship or not, Larson is a competitor with an old school mentality. In other words, his focus is on winning his seventh race of the year and his second at his adopted hometown track.
The same preparation and intensity that sometimes costs Larson in pivotal moments also proves rewarding in crunch time. Victories at Las Vegas, Kansas, Sonoma, Indianapolis, Bristol and the Charlotte ROVAL showcased the wheelman’s versatile style and his team’s meticulous approach.
Regardless of the result, Larson hopes for two positives when the 312-lap race wraps up at the unique, dogleg shaped speedway.
“We’ve had a great year although with a lot of ups and downs,” Larson said in a team press release. “We’ll head to Phoenix with the same mindset we’ve had all year and that is to win. Hopefully, we can finish the year out strong with William [Byron] also bringing home the championship for Hendrick Motorsports.”
The ingredients were there for Larson and Byron to battle for the title in the midst of Hendrick Motorsport’s 40th anniversary season. Both drivers easily distinguished themselves as championship contenders with a combined nine victories and relatively consistent results in a highly charged Cup Series.
Kyle Larson wants a win at Phoenix Raceway before an offseason refresher ahead of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
While Byron advanced despite some controversies surrounding multiple factors toward the end of last Sunday’s race at Martinsville, Larson, who placed third, recognized how his finishes at Las Vegas and Homestead-Miami proved costly.
“Sure, I’d like to be racing for a championship but it didn’t work out for us in the Round of 8. That’s kind of the format and just gotta do better next time, win more stages and more races,” Larson said to Bob Pockrass of FOX NASCAR.
The valiant rally at Las Vegas was offset by scoring only a single stage point. Then, the early contact with the Turn 2 wall at Homestead-Miami Speedway, in spite of the comeback, proved moot when Larson spun while threading the needle between the lapped car of Austin Dillon and then race leader Ryan Blaney inside the final 13 laps.
Finishing 13th with no stage points scored, Larson’s hopes rested with his fate in last Sunday’s race at Martinsville. Unlike the past two Round of 8 races, Larson was in position to tally stage points while contending for the victory at the paperclip shaped track.
Kyle Larson could play the role of spoiler in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
Now, Larson and crew chief Cliff Daniels shift their focus on winning at Phoenix, a track yielding respectable results for the 2021 Cup champion. In 20 starts, Larson has a win, eight top fives and 12 top 10s, logging an average finish of 11.4.
Qualifying fourth and with a car that posted the fourth fastest time in a 10-lap consecutive average speed chart, the patented long run pace is prevalent.
About the only thing that Larson does not have a solution, at least in the present, is fixing the Playoffs to be more conducive to a driver and team with the most wins in the season.
“I personally don’t have any ideas yet. I haven’t really thought about it a whole lot this week,” Larson said to Dustin Long of NASCAR on NBC. “I think there’s probably ways that could keep it compelling but also a little bit more fair at the same point.
“There’s no question that the Playoffs are really exciting. The format produces excitement so we don’t want to get rid of that. But at the same point, you’d like to see a little bit more fair or maybe this is the fairest way. I don’t know.”
