Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, enters Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix in a very unique position. Of the four drivers in the Championship 4, the Elk Grove, California-native is the only one to have previously hoisted the Bill France Cup.
Sure, it’s been four years since it happened, and the series was using a drastically different racecar at that point, so Larson is indifferent about whether it means anything, but the 32-time NASCAR Cup Series race-winner has succeeded on the biggest stage in American motorsports.
“I mean, sure, we could all think up a reason of why there’s an edge that I would have,” Larson said on Thursday. “We’re all so good, our teams are so good, that I just don’t buy into anything like that. But we’ll see. I think having won before, I am a champion, so if I win another one, great. If I don’t, I’m still on the list. There’s that. I don’t think that gives you any kind of competitive advantage.”
In a division where the competition is as tight as it’s ever been, and the Championship 4 drivers and teams are all at the top of their game, there’s a good shot that it takes a victory to win the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship… and Larson hasn’t done that since May, the longest winless streak of his tenure with Hendrick Motorsports.
“From start to finish, it hasn’t. I think earlier in the year we were better than we’ve been in other years. Then our cars kind of got off for a bit. I’m sure I got off, as well. I would say the last 12 or 13 weeks, maybe not all those weeks in that, but in that time frame, I feel like we have gotten better,” Larson said asked about his winless drought. “Each week we continue to kind of rise. I think I feel we’re peaking at the right time. I think our short track package has gotten way better.”
A successful NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway, where Larson defeats Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, and William Byron, would take the Hendrick Motorsports driver one step closer to emulating some of NASCAR’s most legendary drivers, like Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, who Larson has always looked up to.
“I don’t really, like, think about the legacy part of it,” Larson added. “I’ve always really looked up to Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon. They’re multi-time champions. Just getting a second would mean I’m closer to them. That’s one of the reasons why I would like to win, just to hopefully get closer to them.”
When compairing himself to Tony Stewart or Jeff Gordon (who, by the way, is the Vice Chairman at Hendrick Motorsports), Larson was bashful about setting a certain goal for his time in the NASCAR Cup Series, before revealing he’d like to match a win number held by Stewart, who is known as one of the most versatile drivers to have ever found success in NASCAR.
But, with that, also comes the question of longevity in NASCAR, to which Larson had a pretty blunt answer about: “I’ve always loved NASCAR. It really is — it’s kind of always bugged me, and I think you asked maybe this year in 12 Questions or something, it’s always bugged me that you people just assume I don’t like doing this, I don’t like NASCAR. This is my 12th year, if I didn’t like it, I would not be here sufferring through NASCAR racing. I absolutely love it. I just love racing. I love competing. I love the team aspect. I love everything about racing.”
At 33 years old, Larson says that the point in which he would reevaluate whether to pull the trigger on walking away from NASCAR would be at 40 years old — when his children, Owen and Audrey, are old enough to be getting into serious competitve levels of racing, because he would want to be a part of that.
NASCAR is afterall, a very family-oriented sport, and Larson is a family man. A triuimph this weekend would be special for a number of reasons, but especially because his entire family would be here to celebrate with him.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s special. For sure I think they obviously see all the time that I don’t get to be around them,” Larson said. “I think having them here, it’s a good reminder, This is why dad works as hard as he does, because this is something he wants to accomplish really bad.”
Coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway will take place on Sunday, November 2, at 3:00 PM ET on NBC, Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
