Kyle Larson’s runner-up showing to Kyle Busch in Monday’s rain-delayed race finish at Bristol Motor Speedway stoked some competitive frustration in the fifth-year Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver.
Even four days later, ahead of Saturday night’s race at Richmond Raceway (6:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), it was apparent Larson still felt the sting.
“Yeah, I was mad,” Larson said. “That’s as close as I’ve come to winning a Cup race at Bristol. … That one stung probably more than any Cup win I can kind of think of at this point. … It sucked.”
MORE: Richmond schedule | Larson leads final practice
Larson led a race-high 200 laps at Bristol – nearly twice as many as Busch (who led 117 laps) and the two exchanged the lead four times in the final 119 laps before Busch took the point for good with six laps remaining.
“I’d moved on shortly after because I was really mad when I got back to the bus, and I texted (Busch) about this, but … the first thing I heard when I walked in the bus was, ‘Oh, did you get me some Skittles?’ ” said Larson, smiling at the request his 3-year old son Owen so innocently asked about. Skittles sponsored Busch’s winning car.
Arriving at the .75-mile Richmond Raceway this week may help the process of getting over it for good. Larson won the Monster Energy Series last race here in September. He started from the pole position (2014) in his first Cup start here and was runner-up in the 2016 race.
Still, it’s proven to be a tough season so far for any driver not named Kevin Harvick or Kyle Busch. Those two veterans have won five of the opening eight races and have four combined runner-up showings in the races they didn’t win.
MORE: Driver standings
Larson acknowledged the dominance of those two teams, Harvick driving a Ford and Busch driving a Toyota. But Larson also said he felt like his No. 42 Credit One Bank Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and the other Chevrolets were getting better. Austin Dillon’s last-lap victory in the season-opening Daytona 500 is the only race a Chevrolet has won so far.
“I still think Harvick is really fast,” Larson said sizing up his fellow front-runners. “I think Kyle is really good at executing, which has helped him win the last couple of races and really run in the top 3 for as long as he has now. But yeah, as far as pure speed, I think the No. 4 (of Harvick) has everybody covered.”
That’s not to say Larson doesn’t consider himself a favorite at Richmond this week. He’s done everything but win this season and that first 2018 trophy feels inevitable. And perhaps the lesson learned in a tough defeat – like at Bristol last week – will make Larson’s next victory all the sweeter.
“I feel like we’ve gotten off to a really good start with the new body and all that. It’s early in the year and we’re going to continue to get better and better every week,” Larson said. ” … We’ve just got to keep working hard and I think we can get to the point of being the fastest car on the race track every weekend.
“I think we’ve proved last week that we were the fastest car. We didn’t get the win so we have to keep working on that and move it to other race tracks so we can be really fast.”