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Kyle Larson’s penchant for Homestead-Miami Speedway is clear, but that doesn’t mean he always made the South Florida track feel good.
This weekend he will have three chances of victory. Larson will compete for the Nascar Cup, XFinity and Craftsman truck racing in an effort to join Kyle Busch as the only drivers who swept a triple weekend-something that Busch did in 2010 and ’17 at Bristol.
Joe Gibbs Racing talked for years about what to do if a team car had to fasten a wheel after leaving his pit stall.
For a cut that was apparently built to fit Larson’s talents, Homestead-Miami Speedway only awarded the Hendrick Motorsports driver one cup and one XFinity victory, while giving much more sad over the years.
“I feel like every time I go there, there is disappointed because you feel you had the best car … and just things don’t work out, whether it’s mistakes on my end or a bad warning, combined with a hiccup on Pit Road or whatever late in the race, and you finally lose,” Larson said Wednesday in response to a question of NBC sports.
Larson started five top five finishes in 11 cups on the 1.5 mile track. But he admits that he remembers the defeats more than victories in his career. Despite his success on Homestead-Larson, a track record has 626 laps in Cup led-he has more memories of racing that he did not win there.
“I feel like … anything but two or three races on Homestead, I felt like we had the best car, the best chance to win, and we don’t have the victories to show for it,” says Larson, who enters sixth in the points over the weekend.
The last time the Nascar Cup series rushed on Homestead-Miami Speedway, Tyler Reddick went from third to first on the last round to win the previous fall’s play-off match.
Last year, Larson Ryan Blaney challenged the 13 -round lead as they approached Austin Dillon, the last driver at the lead. Larson tried to push and spun between Blaney and Dillon. Larson finished 13th.
“I don’t regret anything about the race,” Larson said. “Obviously, if I know what the result is about what’s going to happen, I would do something else. I would probably just be more patient now. ‘
But Larson said he felt like he had to move at that point.
“The tires faded at that point, and I had an opportunity in front of me and I took it,” he said. “If I’m just patient there and don’t have another opportunity to win, everyone will ask: ‘If you had a hole there, why didn’t you try? ‘It’s so easy to look back at things and criticize it and it all, but we make a second decisions out there 180 miles per hour or whatever we go.
“That race … we should have run 25th by car, so I was proud to have the opportunity to chase for the win. I know that the outside of the car looked good, but everything under it was junk. I was lucky to have a shot. ‘
Two pit crew members from Kyle Busch and Chase Briscoe teams will miss the next two races.
In 2023, Larson, the leader, rushed to Pit Road when Blaney delayed more than Larson expected at the entrance to the pit. Larson moved to the right to prevent him from hitting Blaney’s car, but struck Sandvates and damaged his car and ended his race.
Larson’s Lone Cup victory on Homestead came in 2022 when he led 199 of the 267 rounds.
Larson says he likes the track. When Nascar changed a rule before this season to allow cup drivers to compete on Dash 4 Cash Xfinity Events – Saturday’s race on Homestead is the first Dash 4 Cash 4 race of the season – Larson wanted to run the race. He will be in a Hendrick Motorsports car for the race and drive for Spire Motorsports in Friday’s truck race.
“It was a kind of my idea to run threefold service on Homestead,” Larson said. “… of course would like to win at least one of them and all three would win, would be beautiful too.”
