Kyle Larson’s day started with promise and ended in wreckage at Talladega Superspeedway, and the Hendrick Motorsports driver wasn’t the least bit surprised.
Larson rolled off from the front row after rain cancelled qualifying at the 2.66-mile Alabama oval, but a pit-road problem and the Stage 2 Big One turned his race into a short one. He was sidelined with the damage and scored 40th.
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In a post-race interview, Larson said the trouble began before the crash after the team did not get enough fuel on the first stop, which forced him to save fuel and fall back in the pack. A slower second stop cost him the draft, and that left him deep in the field when the race got tight in Stage 2. Then the big wreck, which collected 26 cars, hit on Lap 115 and trapped Larson in the middle.
“There was a big stack-up and I was just in the middle of it. It was a bummer for this No. 5 Valvoline Chevrolet team. Just another Talladega result for us, but we got ourselves back there. I don’t know what happened on our first pit stop, but we didn’t get as much fuel in it that we needed to. I was saving fuel and got shuffled to the back,” Kyle Larson said (via Speedway Digest).
“We had to take a little longer on the next pit stop, so we lost the draft and had to restart in the back to start Stage Two. It was starting to get hairy there at the start of the stage, so I wasn’t surprised to get wrapped up in that crash. It’s just an unfortunate end to the day,” he added.
The 33-year-old’s track record at Talladega is filled with bad luck. In more than 20 Cup starts at the track, his average finish sits around 21st with five top-10s. Last spring, he finished 10th after starting near the front, but he ended up 34th after trouble late in the fall.
Kyle Larson keeps sixth place after the Big One at Talladega
Kyle Larson’s day ended early on Sunday, but it did not change his NASCAR Cup Series standings. He kept his sixth place in the standings after Talladega.
Bubba Wallace was leading the middle lane when he got a hard push from Ross Chastain. That shove turned his car sideways, and he shot up into the outside wall. The wreck collected 26 cars, and Wallace, Larson, Joey Logano, William Byron, Chad Finchum, Josh Berry, and Cole Custer saw their races end early before the final stage began.
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. Kyle Larson led the most laps at the Texas track last spring and finished in fourth after a late restart shuffled the field.
Edited by Riddhiman Sarkar