The number now stands at 33. And in a sport that measures time in laps and careers in moments, that’s starting to feel less like a statistic and more like a stubborn, ticking clock.
For Kyle Larson, the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion, Kansas Speedway was supposed to be the reset button. The place where this whole drought began, last May, in fact, also felt like the perfect place to end it. Racing has a funny way of tying things up neatly like that… until it doesn’t.
Coming into the weekend, Larson looked every bit the favorite. The kind of favorite where you don’t even bother overthinking it, you just assume at some point he’ll take control and that’ll be that. And for most of Sunday, that assumption looked spot on.
He won Stage 2. He led laps. He put himself exactly where you want to be when things get chaotic late, out front, in clean air, holding the cards.
And then came overtime.
Larson got the restart he needed. He did the hard part. He grabbed the lead. From there, it should’ve been a Sunday drive to the checkered flag.
Instead, it turned into something else entirely.
“When it all worked out like that, I was like, oh, great, clean air,” Larson said. “I went through three and four and I was plowing. Yeah, I was nervous. Then I could tell he had a huge run on me behind. Thought maybe if I could get to the banking, it would like load and cut, but it didn’t.
“Yeah, he was really good right there. I was just hoping to be better. I was happy to get to the lead, the restart worked out great. Anyways, we got lucky with the caution, too.
“Yeah, good day. I think first stage first and a second in the race. Yeah, we’re getting closer. Really close there. We’ll keep trying.”
That’s the thing about Kansas. It doesn’t just ask for speed, it demands perfection. And on Sunday, Larson had almost all of it. Almost.
“It was a good execution on the restart there at the end,” he added. “I got to the lead and I thought I could cruise right there to the checkered flag, but my balance on two tires was just super, super tight. I didn’t get through (turns) three and four fast enough, and then the No. 45 (Tyler Reddick, race winner) had such a big run on me from behind. I thought I could go to the top to get some load into my front tires, but it still didn’t turn there. That was a bummer, but just overall happy with the day we had.”
Happy, yes. But satisfied? Not a chance.
Because while Tyler Reddick celebrated his fifth win of 2026, Larson was left staring at the same number that followed him into the weekend, only now it’s one higher.
Thirty-three races.
He looked like the guy. Until he wasn’t.
And that, more than anything, is what makes this stretch so peculiar. Larson isn’t lost. He isn’t off the pace. He’s not even particularly unlucky.
He’s just… not winning.
Which, in NASCAR, is the only number that really counts.
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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