Kyle Larson finally got his Sprint Cup win.
Larson is accustomed to winning, and to doing so quickly when moving through different series in racing. Things didn’t happen quite that way in the Sprint Cup ranks, though.
Throughout his career, he’d move into a series with high expectations, and then meet those. In Sprint Cup, he matched the hot start in his rookie year — but it took him a while to actually finish things off with a win.
Larson, 24, did just that Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, earning his first career Sprint Cup victory.
Now, he’s gone from the frustration of setbacks in the last two races that had his potential to battle for the championship in danger to locking into the Chase for the Sprint Cup field.
Suddenly, instead of talking about things going wrong, he was evaluating his potential in the 10-race championship-determining segment of the season.
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All in a day’s work.
“This feels different because it’s taken me a lot longer than it took me in any of the other stuff to get a win," he said. "It took me a couple of months to win my first sprint car race. … It took me a few months to win when I got into USAC. I guess it took me a few years to win an Outlaw race, but I’d still been winning sprint car races.
“But this, after the way my rookie season started, coming close a few times and not getting it done, you can kind of visualize the win. That early in your career, you’re like, ‘it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen’ and just never happened. So this one’s different just because of how long we had to wait and how much harder I’ve had to work for it. It’s special because all of the hard work has paid off.”
On Sunday, Larson looked like he could win late in the race, then he looked like his shot had once more slipped away as Chase Elliott took the lead and began pulling away.
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And then a late caution changed everything.
Larson, who led 41 laps in the race, took his final turn at the front on a restart following that caution. He didn’t have the greatest restart, but it was good enough to pull away from Elliott and the rest of the challengers.
After that, Larson just held on for the win.
He ended a 99-race winless streak for his Chip Ganassi Racing organization, one dating to Oct. 20, 2013, when Jamie McMurray won for the organization at Talladega. Larson has come close to a win a couple of times this season, finishing second at Dover (when he cleanly raced eventual winner Matt Kenseth) and third at Michigan earlier this year.
For a driver who is in only his third full season of Cup competition, and who has only 99 starts, Larson and those around him made a lot of comments about him being so close to a win up to this point.
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As he discussed this race, and this win, he admitted that he was glad it came before his 100th career start, which will come next Sunday at Darlington.
He became the first graduate of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity and the NASCAR Next programs to win in the Cup series. He was the third first-time winner of the weekend in one of the sanctioning body’s three major touring series. And he became the latest addition to the Chase, locking into the championship field just weeks after thinking that his shot had slipped away.
“He is due,” teammate McMurray said. “He has been in position more than once to be able to win a race. I think he was in second when the caution came out. I don’t know if he was going to be able to win at that point.
“It’s cool that he got a good restart and earned it. I’m really happy for that team, for that sponsor, for our whole organization. From where we started our year to where our cars are now we have made a lot of progress. Props to those guys.”
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Larson admitted he felt that way as well. He said that when the year started he wasn’t certain that the team could be as competitive as it wanted this season. Then crew chief Chad Johnston started implementing his system and, by May, things had started turning around for the group.
Larson felt that things were heading in the right direction.
That culminated with the emotional win Sunday. As he started closing in on the victory, Larson admitted that he started feeling the effects of chasing his first win.
“I was pretty calm for a couple of laps, then started shaking, legs were a little numb there for a couple of laps,” he said. “Then the last, I think with two to go, I was starting to get choked up. We’ve worked really, really hard to get a win and just haven’t done it and finally all the hard work by everybody, hundreds of people at our race shop, people who’ve got me to the Cup series, it was all paying off. It was pretty awesome.
“I couldn’t quite catch my breath there after I got out of the car because I spent two minutes screaming because I was so pumped up. It was pretty special and I’ll remember it forever.”
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A string of Cup drivers went to victory lane to congratulate Larson. Others offered congratulations on social media.
Larson, meanwhile, seemed to just be soaking it in.
Just days after being caught up in a series of crashes as he tried to rally at Bristol, Larson was burning up his tires as he celebrated his first career win. And taking time for a special moment.
Before talking about the race and the Chase, he dedicated his win to the memory of Bryan Clauson, his friend and fellow competitor who died Aug. 7 from injuries sustained in a midget sprint car crash. Last week at Bristol he wore a helmet honoring Clauson; this week he included Clauson and his friends and family in his victory celebration.
“This one is for the Clauson family,” he said. “We really miss Bryan. We love you guys. We’re going to miss him. We parked it for him, so that’s really cool.”