Kyle Larson has just become a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion (Image: Getty)
Kyle Larson doesn’t think about legacy. Not yet, anyway. But he knows one day he will.
When he sits down in his armchair and reflects on his journey, it will be impossible to shake the feeling that the last five years have been a perfect juxtaposition between the surprising and unsurprising at the same time.
The fact that Kyle Larson is standing speaking to Express U.S. Sports from the top of the Empire State Building as a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion is entirely unsurprising.
By this stage, everybody knows he is probably the most talented driver in the Cup Series. Some think he’s the world’s most talented man on four wheels.
But if you’d asked him in any of his first six years in the Cup Series after his debut in 2014, he never envisioned this, even if many others did.
“Honestly, I never really thought I could be a NASCAR champion early in my career,” Larson admits. “Just because I knew it would be very difficult competing with the team I was with.”
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Larson celebrated his win on top of the Empire State Building where he spoke to Express U.S. Sports (Image: Getty)
At Chip Ganassi Racing, he was realistic about the fact the big three – Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske – were the teams to win championships.
In 2020, he watched on from the sidelines as Chase Elliott reached the summit. A few weeks later, Larson became his teammate at Hendrick Motorsports and that changed everything.
“I knew getting with them would be my opportunity to do a lot of great things,” he recalls. “I didn’t know if I would ever accomplish it, but I felt like I would have the right people and tools in place to go and give it a good run.”
For a man blessed with his talent, it is no surprise he has done just that. 26 race wins, including two All-Star races, three Crown Jewels and now two Cup Series Championships.
“I’m very grateful of the success we’ve had in a short amount of time,” he says.
But the circumstances that thrust him to where he belongs are less conventional than the results which everyone knew he was capable of.
After being suspended for using a racial slur during an iRacing event, he was suspended when NASCAR returned during the COVID-19 pandemic. He lost all his sponsors. As he quietly rehabilitated in the background, his reputation was in tatters.
At that moment, Larson becoming not only the Cup Series champion but one of its most popular drivers looked a million miles away. Then Rick Hendrick offered him a lifeline.
Becoming champion looked a long way off when Larson was at Chip Ganassi Racing (Image: Getty)
“It just makes me appreciate the journey even more,” he reflects. “And, you know, for all my supporters who stuck with me, and Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon for giving me a second opportunity in the Cup Series.
“That’s something that I do reflect back on. You know, it’s like, man, so much has happened since 2020, and I’m just blessed and grateful for everything.”
It’s all part of the story, where Larson is writing all the chapters he was expected to, just not in the order anyone anticipated.
For much of this year’s Championship race, he was nowhere to be seen. At one stage, he was a lap down and, by his own admission, his No.5 car was “average”.
Denny Hamlin looked to be cruising to his first-ever championship, the story that appeared destined to be written. Then came the twist: the caution fell. Larson and his team was handed a glimmer of hope.
In a two-lap shootout for the championship, Larson spotted no pressure, only an opportunity. It was a win-win situation he never expected to find himself in just moments earlier.
“Well, I think it must feel different, depending on your situation,” he says. “Like, for me, it was opportunity, and I was excited for the green white checker…whereas I’ve been in the other side of it, where I’ve been leading… a lot like Denny. And then the caution comes out, and you’re instantly, like, a little bit deflated, like, gosh dang. And then your mind’s kind of in a negative headspace.
“But that’s just NASCAR racing, and that’s what we have right now with the format and green, white checkers and all that. So you just got to be ready for anything.”
Given the winner-takes-all championship race format is widely expected to be shelved this offseason, Larson might be the last person to find himself in that situation again, knowing an entire year of endless grind will be decided by an intense two-lap shootout.
“I don’t know if that’s something to be proud about or not, or if it really matters,” he says. “But I hope that I can win a championship in whatever format we have coming to prove that our team can win in any sort of fashion.”
There’s an irony that the last and most controversial finale of the much-maligned format was won by the driver most expected to thrive even more in a system that rewards more sustained performance.
He would have won this season’s championship in old-school points format, for instance. In 2024, he won six races, more than any other driver, but did not even find himself in the championship race.
It’s why, as much as hearts have ached for Hamlin, and Larson himself has expressed his sympathy, few can begrudge him another title. Even if he’s well aware the circumstances were fortunate.
Asked how he’ll reflect on this week when the dust has settled, he ponders: “Just still thinking about the race and how kind of fortunate we got, but how our team never quit.
“I think that’s what I’ll remember, just how proud I was of the team, how proud I was of Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) and everybody.”
Of course, there will be the pictures. He’ll remember his wife, Katelyn, chugging a beer in Victory Lane and his eldest son, 11-year-old Owen, himself a budding young racer, watching on one day dreaming of being there himself.
He’ll remember his seven-year-old daughter, Audrey, understanding what was happening this time, and the fact their youngest son, Cooper, who turns three in December, was actually here to witness his latest title, running around in confetti having not yet been born when he last won.
“But I think for sure, just how in shock I was, you know, crossing start finish line,” he reflects as the lasting legacy.
Larson celebrated his second Championship win with his wife and three kids (Image: Getty)
Larson’s win marks the end of an era and beginning of another for NASCAR. A new format is coming, we just don’t know what, and even Larson is unsure the optimal answer.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he admits. “Because I don’t think there’s a right format for anybody…but what I know is, I think to crown a champion, I think we all agree it needs to be more than one race to come down to.
“So whether that’s a full 36 race season, or 10 or four, I think anything more than one would be better. I just think everybody in the sport fans, included, probably majority of them, you just want a larger sample size for crowning a champion.”
From an era in which Larson and many others have recognized championship wins have been a lottery, there is something fitting about the fact he has emerged with two to his name.
Speaking to us ahead of his second attempt at ‘The Double’ earlier this year, he was asked the impact on his legacy and said: “Honestly, I don’t really think about it. I just want to race and do a good job. I think if you do a good job, that takes care of the legacy.”
And so it has turned out, that the stars aligned again when they looked like they wouldn’t to give Larson one of the accolades his career undoubtedly deserves, even if Sunday’s single race perhaps did not.
“I think Sunday showed that you just got to never count yourself out,” he says. “I’ve definitely had a lot of races where I’ve gotten them stolen from me at the end.
“It’ll come around eventually. And I’m just thankful it came around in a race like that, to get us a championship. Our team did an amazing job throughout the end of that race. And you know, it was definitely a team victory.”
Larson’s win cements his legacy – but he still wants to achieve a lot more (Image: Getty)
As a two-time champion, Larson knows this takes his legacy to another level, albeit he’s yet to figure out exactly to what extent. And he hopes when he can take the time to think about that, the number will be far higher than two.
“I recognize how it probably does, you know, take your legacy, to the next sort of level, but I don’t think about it a whole lot yet. I’m sure someday I will get to slow down and reflect on everything I’ve accomplished.
“And hopefully when that day comes, I’ve got more than two championships and a lot more wins. But for right now, I’m just in the moment, you know, enjoying this championship, and then get into relaxing and try to go for another one next year.”
Next year’s bid for a third championship and a chance to go back-to-back will begin with the one Crown Jewel Larson doesn’t have to his name: The Daytona 500.
“Obviously I recognized a few years ago that Daytona is probably the last big one that I would like to win. But I don’t fret or think about it too much, because I understand that like 80% of it’s luck.
“Just try to go there and put yourself in contention. And I feel like we’ve gotten a lot better at the Daytonas and Talladegas. So I do feel like we have an opportunity to win every time we go there. Just got to kind of have it all come together.”
As Larson keeps putting himself in the position, it’s bound to come together for him in The Great American Race at one stage or another. Just like it did at Phoenix, and just like it did in 2021.
They say you make your own luck, and Larson’s ability to pull off the unsurprising in the most surprising circumstances modern-day NASCAR often generates is why nobody can doubt he’s now one of the sport’s all-time greats.
And whatever happens from here, he hopes nobody will ever doubt just how much passion he has for NASCAR.
“I love competing for championships and wins,” he says. “If anything, I hope it reminds race fans when they see my excitement how much I love NASCAR racing.”