There are many ways to lose a NASCAR race. You can be outsmarted. You can be outmuscled. You can be betrayed by a lug nut with commitment issues.
Or, if you’re Kyle Larson, the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion, you can simply turn left at precisely the wrong moment and remove yourself from the equation entirely.
Sunday at EchoPark Speedway, Larson was not merely competitive. He was authoritative. He led 48 laps in the Autotrader 400 — the most he has ever led on a drafting track — which is a bit like discovering your accountant can bench-press 400 pounds. Unexpected. Slightly unsettling. And extremely effective.
For most of Stage 2, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet looked planted, poised, and very much like it intended to collect something shiny later in the afternoon. Larson was running third on the final lap of the stage, precisely where you want to be if you enjoy stage points and not smashing into walls.
Then came the decision.
Exiting Turn 4, Larson cleared Tyler Reddick’s No. 45. In his mirror, that particular problem appeared solved. What he didn’t see — or didn’t fully process — was that Shane van Gisbergen had filled the vacancy underneath in the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet.
Larson wanted to shortcut the distance to the stage finish. Trim a little arc. Be clever. Efficient. Surgical.
Instead, he hung a quick left and drove directly into van Gisbergen.
The contact snapped the No. 5 sideways, and Larson’s afternoon ended nose-first into the outside wall on the frontstretch. Heavy damage. Tow truck. Garage. Curtain.
Van Gisbergen, meanwhile, carried on after repairs, because apparently the New Zealander treats spinning stock cars at 180 mph as a mild inconvenience. He later fought his way back to 12th by lap 199 before getting loose again in Turn 4 and taking another scenic tour across the frontstretch infield. Somehow, he continued.
Larson, however, owned it immediately.
“I just messed up,” he said. “I knew the No. 45 (Tyler Reddick) was inside of me at one point of the corner, but I got clear of him. I didn’t quite realize that the No. 97 (Shane van Gisbergen) had gotten inside of him. So once I was clear, I just wanted to cut distance and short-cut my way to the stage finish. The No. 97 was out of my mirror. I just hung a quick left and ran right into him. There was nothing anyone else did wrong, it was all on me.”
No finger-pointing. No coded language. Just a champion admitting he misjudged the geometry at 190 mph.
“I hate it for this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team,” he added. “We had a great Chevy. I felt like up until that point, I was doing a pretty good job. As always, we’re just trying to build our notebook up on these places. I know we crashed, but I feel like we are still getting better and better when we come to drafting tracks, especially here at Atlanta.”
And that’s the maddening part. He was good. Very good. Perhaps better than expected on a style of track that hasn’t always been his playground.
But racing at the front on a drafting track is like juggling chainsaws in a windstorm. One miscalculation, one blind spot, one optimistic tug of the steering wheel — and suddenly you’re not leading.
You’re loading up.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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