Two days after the fact, Kyle Larson didn’t sound as if he looked back on his latest runner-up finish with any regrets.
Disappointed, sure, but regretting nothing about how he handled the closing laps of Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway
Second for a fourth time in his still-blossoming NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career, the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates driver was unable to overtake Matt Kenseth in the waning laps, eventually stopping his No. 42 Chevrolet on pit road instead of victory lane.
The “should he or shouldn’t he” question was inevitable. Contact with Kenseth might have made Larson a winner for the first time since stepping up to the premier series in 2013. But it was a price the 23-year-old said he wasn’t willing to pay.
“I felt like I did everything I could do to get by him without getting into him,” Larson said during a break in Tuesday’s Goodyear tire test at Michigan International Speedway. “I’ve always felt like Matt’s raced me with a ton of respect so I wanted to do my part, racing him with a lot of respect as well. It was a fun battle. …
“I did have a couple of chances to get into him but that’s not really how I want to win my first one. I want to do it the right way. I don’t regret it; maybe it could come back to haunt me, but you never know.”
CGR fields two Sprint Cup teams, the No. 42 for Larson and the No. 1 for teammate Jamie McMurray, a seven-time winner in the series.
From a statistical standpoint, the Dover finish was the closest yet for Larson, who trailed the Joe Gibbs Racing winner by .187 seconds at the line.
Two years ago, it was Kyle Busch throwing a final-lap block at Auto Club Speedway that foiled Larson’s advances. Later that season, it was Joey Logano driving away on a green-white-checkered finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Again in ’14, this time at Kansas in The Chase, Larson was unable to reel in Logano during a final 26-lap green-flag run.
Others have weathered similar storms: Kasey Kahne finished second six times before his first Sprint Cup win and NASCAR Hall of Fame member Bill Elliott was a bridesmaid eight times before winning. The record for near-misses before victory belongs to former driver Lennie Pond, who was second on 12 occasions.
Tabbed as a can’t-miss prospect by veterans such as three-time champion Tony Stewart, Larson scored eight top-fives and 17 top-10 finishes during his rookie season — more than several of those who finished ahead of him in the points battle. But ’15 wasn’t as kind, his numbers dropped and even through the beginning of the current season his results seemed to lag.
More recent efforts, however, have been encouraging.
“Our cars just haven’t been quite as fast as they were in 2014,” Larson said. “We’d kind of fallen behind a little bit on building the bodies the way they need to be and maybe chassis stuff a little bit. But we brought in some smart people over the offseason.”
The addition of crew chief Chad Johnston and engineer Phil Surgen “has really brought a lot of influence to (both) our race teams,” he said.
Larson heads into Friday night’s Sprint Showdown at Charlotte Motor Speedway (7:10 p.m. ET, FS1) as one of the favorites to earn one of the transfer spots into Saturday’s annual Sprint All-Star Race.
“I definitely feel like I’m a smarter racer now, a better race car driver,” he said.
“I feel like over the last several years I’ve kept that same aggressiveness, but gotten my patience a little bit better.
“To be a championship driver, I think you have to put the whole package together and patience is a big part of that.”