Kyle Larson catches up with NASAR on NBC pit reporter Dave Burns at Homestead. (Photo: Erik Smith | The Podium Finish)
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — The pressure may be off for Kyle Larson as far as clinching a Championship 4 spot is concerned. However, he is not backing down so easily this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Larson appears to have another strong, fast car for Sunday’s 4EVER 400 Presented by Mobil 1 following his thrilling Las Vegas win. After besting Christopher Bell in one of the closest NASCAR Cup Series races at Las Vegas, he returns to Homestead, a track he considers as one of his best on the schedule.
With the stresses of vying for a Championship 4 spot behind him, Larson makes it clear that he wants to keep his relentlessness going in the Round of 8.
“The pressure is a lot less than what other drivers are feeling, but I feel like I want to win just as bad as everybody else does, too,” Larson said. “I’m not treating this weekend, or these next two weekends, like they don’t matter. I think they matter just as much to me as everybody else, but it’s nice not having to think about the points or feel the pressure all week.
“Yeah, as the rounds go on, you definitely feel more pressure. I’ve only been in the Round of 8 three times, and two of them, I won the first race. So I don’t really remember, honestly, what the pressure is like. But I know what it’s like in the other rounds and I know what I felt like at the ROVAL, so I can only imagine that as each race moves on, you feel more pressure and that’s not a fun feeling.”
One of the benefits of clinching a Championship 4 spot two weeks ahead of time is trying out new things before Phoenix race weekend. In this case, Larson is using his Phoenix car this weekend at Homestead, a track where the high line is a pivotal ingredient for success on race day.
Starting from the fifth position, Kyle Larson posted the second fastest time in a 10-lap consecutive run at Homestead. (Photo: Erik Smith | The Podium Finish)
“For me, it is.. it’s important,” he said. “It seems to be how I’ve figured out how to go fast here. You have to be comfortable against the wall and I know there’s a lot of drivers that aren’t that comfortable against it. So that gives guys like myself and (Tyler) Reddick an advantage when we come here.
“Yeah, I don’t know. It just seems like the Next Gen car is a little bit easier to run up against the wall. It was a big advantage last year on the long run and hopefully we’ve gotten our car better on the short run, but still really good on the long run like we were last year.”
As one of the masters at running the high line, Larson explains how it requires a bit of a tightrope act in terms of the approach and timing with dropping the hammer in the car.
“It’s obviously a longer way around, but you can get to the gas so early,” he said. “As long as you’ve entered high enough, you can get to the gas early and just build that momentum and the lap times just compounds from there.
“I know last year, there were points of the race on the long runs where we’d be like three-quarters of a second faster. Just being able to enter with a lot of speed and then carry a lot of speed on exit.”
That crafty, smart driving style paid off in a dominant performance by Larson, leading 199 of 267 laps last year. Even if the box score made it seem like it was a solo masterclass, he points out to some of the challenges of maintaining that firm grip over the field.
“I won this race last year, so I want to say it’s all driver, but I don’t know,” he said. “I think for whatever reason, it didn’t seem like you could run the wall quite as good as I could last year, so we were able to have a big advantage on the long run.
“I still think it’s a little harder to pass, probably, than what the old car would have been potentially. I don’t know – I spent most of the race in the lead last year, but when I caught traffic and stuff, it looked like there were like big groups of people like it was tough to pass.”
Despite those occasionally tricky moments, Larson cashed in with his first win at the Southern Florida track. The genesis of Larson’s high line confidence stemmed from a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race in which he battled one of the all-time greats for meaningful track position.
As one of the masters of running the high line, Kyle Larson recalled a pivotal race that established his confidence with this difficult maneuver. (Photo: Erik Smith | The Podium Finish)
“Well I remember when I ran the Truck race here in 2012, that was my first time here,” he said. “We had a really good race and led some of it. I got to battle with Kyle Busch for a while. I was running fairly high and then he passed me and stuck his hand out the window and told me to get higher, so I just started running as high as I could.
“There were points in the corner where I’d get really close to the wall and once you do that a few times, you can feel the effect that the right-side of the car has against the wall. So then over time, you start pushing it – entering higher and you start getting to the wall at an earlier point in the corner and eventually you just end up running up next to the wall the whole lap.”
This approach continues to work for Larson, who starts fifth for Sunday’s race. Like the late Dale Earnhardt and his propensity to excel in the draft, Larson has those instincts kick in with running near the wall on the edge of control at a place like Homestead.
“Yeah, I think you use all your senses,” Larson said. “You use sight, sound, feel.. all that. The sound gets really loud as you touch the wall, so you don’t really want it to change too much. But yeah, the sun is really bad in (Turn) 1, so I’m guessing that’s where he (Cole Custer) was talking about it being difficult. As it gets later into the day, it’s kind of right in your eyes on the high line into turn one, and it needs to get behind the suites and stuff there in one to be able to see well enough again.
“But yeah, I think I just more go off the feel of the air pushing against your car and the wall. That’s kind of where I get most of my feel from I think, but I’m sure sound, as well.”
