August 9, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

Hendrick's bet on Kyle Larson is paying huge dividends

Entering Watkins Glen, all the buzz was surrounding Chase Elliott—understandably.

No doubt his quest for three straight victories at the iconic New York road course was deserving of a hefty wager. If the No. 9 team hadn’t been penalized before the start of the Go Bowling at The Glen, Elliott would not have had to battle from the rear of the field to settle for second.

Certainly, the best bet of the season goes to Rick Hendrick selecting Kyle Larson to drive the No. 5 Chevrolet. On Sunday, Larson vaulted to the points lead following a series-best fifth win of the season. Hendrick’s choice to recruit Yung Money has paid off in spades.

Larson has led the charge for Hendrick’s 11 victories in the first 23 races—the earliest the organization has reached that number of wins in a season. Chevrolet’s 12 triumphs account for more than half the schedule so far.

While Larson wasn’t the favorite entering the weekend, his win at Sonoma Raceway earlier this year and posting an average finish of seventh in his last two starts at the Glen qualified the 29-year-old racer as a formidable opponent.

“The biggest thing is just the race car, their setups,” Larson said. “I could tell instantly that (the car) had a different feel than I'm used to here. It had good grip. So I think that's the most -- that's the biggest thing of why now I'm racing well. I've always been able to run fast laps, and I think it's showed in the times that we've qualified on road courses. I've still been second, I think, in both of them.”

When NASCAR still had traditional qualifying, Larson’s average starting position at the Glen was 7.16. Remove his rookie effort in Glen time trials and that number drops to fourth. At his home track of Sonoma, Larson posted three poles in his three previous starts and an overall qualifying average of 2.3.

Despite the dramatic differences between the Glen and Sonoma, why not Kyle Larson for the win? Especially after rescuing him from mediocre equipment at Ganassi Racing and actually affording Larson the opportunity to succeed with an organization such as Hendrick.

With such resources at his disposal, Larson, who has 11 wins in 246 career starts, is making up for lost time.

“I definitely did some studying this week and looked at how Chase kind of gets through the Bus Stop (backstretch chicane). I feel like he's got his own kind of unique style through there, so I looked at that a lot, and I felt like I was pretty good through the Bus Stop. I haven't looked at data yet, but I'd be curious to see how I was relative to the 9 car, but I felt like to everybody else I was faster and quite a bit faster through the Bus Stop.

“Like I said earlier, I feel like I'm good—I’ve been good at road courses, but I just didn't know. I was always like a seventh-to-a-tenth-place guy when it came to the race, but now I think that I'm in a great race car I'm able to run that aggressive pace the whole time, and my car stays with me.”

Larson is quick to credit his Cliff Daniels-led crew. The depth of the Hendrick bench is formidable—as the No. 9 team proved by finishing second after Alan Gustafson was sidelined following a pre-race infraction for an illegal rear-window air deflector. Larson knew three circuits into the 90-lap event that he had a winning car. The execution by the pit crew on his green-flag stop enabled Larson to move in front of Martin Truex Jr., who led a race-high 34 laps, and eventually regain the lead with 26 laps to go.

Daniels isn’t surprised that Larson is lighting up the road courses. He believes his driver’s extracurricular racing—including this week’s 60th Knoxville Nationals—has kept Larson sharp.

“He's naturally good anywhere,” Daniels said. “One of the things that he challenges himself with during the summer months, and we've seen him do it years in a row, especially last year and then again this year, when he gets in a different type of dirt car at a different track, they don't give much track time, right, so the driver has to adapt really quick, got to give the right feedback to make the right changes to a car.

“The format that we have now in the Cup Series where we don't have practice and qualifying, you don't have three practice sessions before the race to dial yourself in or out; it's just load and go. That suits him really well.”

Larson must also be considered a favorite in this weekend’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard. With four wins in the last nine races—and the No. 5 team’s ability to cut Denny Hamlin’s 100-plus point advantage in the standings to zero, Larson is carrying tremendous momentum into the final three races of the regular season.

“He ran me really hard at Road America and put me in a couple of bad spots to where I almost ended up in the grass or if I didn't lift I was going to send him spinning,” Larson said of Hamlin. “So then I knew points was on his mind and trying to hold me back is definitely on his mind. It's fun racing him, and I look forward to the next few weeks and really even into the playoffs. There's still a lot of racing left, and yeah, it's going to be fun.

“He's so good at Daytona, too. So it would be nice to get a couple of good weeks and get that point lead because I know he's going to go there, and anything can happen at Daytona but I know he's going to go there and he's going to get stage points and he's going to challenge for the win.

“I know he's looking at me as the same. If he could go into Daytona being even or ahead, he's going to feel like he's got the advantage. I'd like to have a good couple weeks before we get there and give us a little bit of wiggle room.”