AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Kyle Larson is stuck in a 23-race NASCAR losing streak and really hasn't done much better in his sprint car, either. His momentum hit a wall after his failed second attempt to run the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day.
Larson crashed and failed to finish both races in a demoralizing hit he didn't realize he'd carry for so many months. He has never experienced a slump like this, even when he drove for Chip Ganassi
Racing and only won six races.
“Even when I was not ever winning, I could still go to sprint car racing and win and that would keep your confidence in yourself that you can do it," Larson said. "This year when they both took a dip, you're like ‘Man this sucks’ and like ‘How am I going to get out of this?’ and ‘Like, is it me?’ ‘Is is the cars?’ ‘Is is the bad luck?’
“You're just down, searching for answers and sticking through it. Then it slowly started turning around, maybe not as quickly as I would like, but quietly we were getting better and now the NASCAR stuff? We're peaking at the right time.”
Larson will race Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, and Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe on Sunday in NASCAR's winner-take-all championship finale. He's the only driver in the final four with a championship, the one he won in 2021, his first season at Hendrick.
Hamlin, Briscoe and then Byron all won to earn their spots in the field, while Larson failed to win in the playoffs and earned the final berth through points. Even so, he likes how the No. 5 Chevrolet is running the last nine week and likes his chances Sunday.
“I feel like we can win at any point,” Larson said noting he'd run in the top-five the last month. “I feel like that's back to where we are. To me, it doesn't seem like it's been that long since we've won because we've at least been contending to win the last four races.”
Larson has one previous victory at Phoenix, in the 2021 championship race he won. He has three top-fours in five races since.
Another trip to the championship, another middle seat on a commercial flight for Byron.
Two years after Byron needed to win at Martinsville Speedway to make the playoffs, he did it again this year. And just like any NASCAR driver who doesn't own an airplane, he had to quickly find a way to get to Phoenix Raceway.
Hendrick Motorsports wasn't leaving in time to get Byron to Texas, so he once again booked a commercial flight.
And yes, the reigning two-time Daytona 500 champion was once again in a middle seat.
The only Charlotte native in a sport based predominantly in the city and its suburbs, Byron breezed his way through his home airport and the most he was recognized was by the cashier at a pizza place.
“It costs a lot of money to get a plane and I feel like commercial for me is just as easy,” he said. “I live 15 minutes from the commercial airport in Charlotte. I go TSA Precheck. I keep my head down. It’s great. I love it. I like to get treated like a normal person, which I am.”
Byron has a chance to bookend this season with victories. He opened it with a win in his second consecutive Daytona 500 and now can close it at Phoenix with a victory that would give him his first NASCAR Cup title.
This is Byron's third straight appearance in the final four, and he finished third the last two years as a finalist.
It would be a remarkable way to end a season that began on such a high with the Daytona victory, then suffered an unavoidable rollercoaster of a year because the No. 24 Chevrolet team can only go down after opening on the top with 34 races remaining.
“You come off of Daytona, it sets it up for the year for you. You’re a Daytona champion. That’s the Super Bowl,” said team owner Rick Hendrick. "But then you've got to run all the races because you want to be a champion. You’re going to run through down times. We may be behind as an organization at certain tracks.
“Daytona is special, but I think right after you win Daytona, you realize that, hey, we got to be up in the points, we got to win races, we got to advance. There’s a tremendous amount of pressure all year long. William had a fast start. But I don’t think after two, three races, you can’t live on that. You got to move on.”
Born and raised in Indiana, Briscoe is a dirt track kid who idolized Tony Stewart, a fellow Hoosier and NASCAR Hall of Famer. He wanted nothing more than to make it to North Carolina and somehow enter a NASCAR race.
He would be content if he made just one start, he didn't even care at what level of the national series Briscoe got his shot. If it came in a development series, so be it, Briscoe still would have made it.
He sure did, and with a team owned by Stewart, no less. But when Stewart-Haas Racing closed at the end of last season, he needed a new job. Joe Gibbs Racing grabbed him and, in the best equipment of his career, he's raced his way into a shot at his first NASCAR championship.
Back in Mitchell, Indiana, the high school gymnasium will be open Sunday night to root on their local hero.
“The Lawrence County Tourism Board rented an LED TV. I don’t know how many people are going to show up — might be a hundred people, might be 1,500, I don’t know,” Briscoe said. "Obviously the whole city has gotten behind me and this run. They lined the entire Main Street up with checkered flags, running a 19 flag at City Hall.
“So yeah, it’s pretty cool how into it my city is, there’s only like 3,000 people there in the first place. All 3,000 are pretty excited about it.”
Briscoe scored the first Cup win of his career at Phoenix when he still drove for SHR. In his one visit to Phoenix with JGR this spring, he crashed and finished 35th.
Hamlin is the sentimental favorite and recognized as the greatest NASCAR driver to never win a championship.
He was the first driver to qualify for the finale by winning at Las Vegas, a victory that marked the 60th of his career and tied him for 10th on the all-time win list. Hamlin is a three-time Daytona 500 winner and long ago made peace with the idea he may never win a Cup title.
This is his sixth wide-open shot at the title — first time in the finale since 2021 — and he let the first five chances slip away through a comedy of errors.
Hamlin is not the most likeable driver among fans, but his tenacity in suing NASCAR along with Michael Jordan over antitrust claims, the candid opinions he offers both on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast and social media, and the recent revelation that his father is dying, has given him strong outside backing.
If there was any doubt, NASCAR listed Hamlin in the top-five in voting for most popular driver.
“Shocking. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in the top 10. So that in itself was quite a shock,” Hamlin said. "I’m not really sure what it is. I think it’s probably a culmination of all of it. I do think that people can only understand you for what they see on TV.
“Sometimes you rub ’em the wrong way, and sometimes they connect with you. I’m not sure. Certainly it’s super unusual to see my name on the list.”
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
