Kyle Larson starts 12th as he hopes to tally maximum points in Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. (Photo: Hayden Hutchison | The Podium Finish)
LINCOLN, Ala. — Kyle Larson is a contender at most tracks on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit like Bristol Motor Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. When it comes to the superspeedway style races, he has been the equivalent of Mark Martin or Rusty Wallace in their prime.
While the 2021 Cup champion typically runs toward the front of the field in the opening stages, his results have not reflected the performance and effort shown on race day. In his seven most recent starts since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2021, Larson’s average finish at Talladega Superspeedway is 24.0.
Those numbers may seem ominous for the 28-time Cup race winner but Larson has a fourth place finish in the 2022 spring race and a 15th place finish from last year’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio 90). He attributes his frontrunner opportunities to his team’s preparation going into race weeks, namely with crew chief Cliff Daniels.
“Cliff and the entire group at Hendrick Motorsports do a great job with pit strategy at drafting tracks,” Larson said in a team press release. “We’ll work with our Chevrolet teammates to hopefully score points in both stages. While we always seem to run well at Talladega, we just don’t have the results to show for it. I would really just like to see the checkered flag with a solid finish.”
In Larson’s two most recent visits to Talladega, he has nearly seen the checkered flag before his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 has slid across the stripe sideways. Last fall, he was collected in a a last lap accident that knocked him out of a top 10 finish while it was more of the same in April.
It almost serves as a microcosm of Larson’s season in which he has been fast, competitive yet occasionally caught up in misfortunes in two of the Playoffs races like Atlanta and Kansas.
“Our speed has been how it’s been all year,” Larson pointed out in his pre-qualifying media scrum on Saturday. “Aside from Bristol, we’ve had a rough little string of races with Atlanta, me messing up and crashing there, [at] Watkins Glen, we were off on speed at least on Saturday, but on Sunday, we were better. We just put ourselves in a hole. Bristol went great. And at Kansas, we had the flat tire.”
Cliff Daniels, crew chief for Kyle Larson’s No. 5 team, surveys the situation during qualifying for the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. (Photo: Hayden Hutchison | The Podium Finish)
Before qualifying 12th for Sunday’s 188-lap race, Larson emphasized how focused his team has been and how his mission is to simply score a strong finish with maximum points at Talladega.
“Hopefully, we can get all of our bad runs out early in the Playoffs and it can be smoother sailing from here on,” he offered. “But when we go into Talladega, it’s hard to have a smooth weekend here. Performance wise, our team has been doing a great job all year. We’ve just got to have things go our way soon.”
Despite last Sunday’s 26th place finish at Kansas, Larson minimized the damage with his postseason position, remaining above the cutline when the likes of Tyler Reddick, Daniel Suárez, Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric are on the outside looking in.
“With my track record, I would have loved to have been more than 18 points above the cutline coming into this event,” Larson considered. “I say it every time we come here, we only have one top five finish in my career, but we do a good job.
“If you look at the races, we do a good job and we’re up front at most of them. At the end, we get caught up in a crash. Hopefully, this weekend is a little different.”
Even with Larson preparing for his 20th start at Talladega, it never hurts to consider the road ahead with the Charlotte ROVAL looming in a week.
“I think the ROVAL is intimidating to me in general. We’ve won there, but in the Next Gen era, I don’t have a good feel for it,” he observed. “It’s really bumpy and I just feel super on edge. I’ve crashed there almost every time I’ve been there. I’ve been fast but we’ve crashed.
“The last two times I’ve crashed there, it’s been in that section, so now we’re getting rid of that section, so maybe that’s good for me. We’ll be going faster in the early part of the section. If your car is not handling just right, it could be a little edgy, I would think. We’ll see. Hopefully, we can get through this weekend clean and we can be more aggressive next week.”
