RELATED: Full Michigan race report | Watch Larson’s pass for the win
The bold move Kyle Larson made to win Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway is distinctly reminiscent of the kind of audacious from-the-gut maneuver you might have expected to see former NASCAR stars such as the late Dale Earnhardt or recently-retired Tony Stewart pull off.
Coming from the second row on an overtime restart, 25-year old Larson stuck the nose of his No. 42 Target Chevrolet between the front row cars — Furniture Row Racing teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Erik Jones — boldly pushed it forward and frankly, just took off to win the race. They were the only two laps he led on the day.
But it was Larson’s third consecutive win at the Michigan 2-miler located in the backyard of the nation’s automobile headquarters — and the feat tied a mark of three straight wins set by NASCAR Hall of Famers David Pearson and Bill Elliott.
Perspective is necessary. Larson is in only his fourth full-time season in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ranks, so it’s a little early to straight up compare him to the sport’s Hall of Famers.
But there’s no denying he drives like a lot of them.
In three decades covering Larson’s team owner Chip Ganassi in NASCAR, sports cars and IndyCars, I can’t remember many times when Ganassi was so happy and so effusive with a victory as he was on Sunday.
And this is a champion team owner who has already collected a lot of trophies — 195 exactly — and a lot of championships for the organization. Ganassi has Rolex 24 of Daytona winning watches, sports car season trophies, Indy 500 trophies, and IndyCar Series championships.
And, now perhaps Ganassi feels one of his two drivers — Larson or former Daytona 500-winning veteran Jamie McMurray — may finally deliver NASCAR’s season title.
WATCH: Chip Ganassi celebrates with exuberance | @nascarcasm on Ganassi’s celebrating
Certainly Ganassi’s “energetic” embrace of Larson’s crew chief Chad Johnston on pit road as the checkered flag waved and then his bear hug, high five and head tap for Larson afterward were fun to watch whether you’re a fan of that team or not.
Johnston joked this week that maybe he should wear a HANS device on to make sure he doesn’t suffer a celebratory injury.
Of course there are worse ways to get hurt.
It was all a reminder of why we love to watch racing — a thrilling finish followed by genuine emotion.
“My hat’s off to everybody on the team because the countless hours and the hard work and having to listen to the media and having to listen to everybody the last few weeks, that it’s all falling apart and we’re no good anymore, we were below 23rd or whatever for three races in a row,” Ganassi said. “So my hats off to the team for just hanging in there and not listening to the critics.”
Truex and Jones put up a great fight, and even as gutted as he had to be, the always stand-up Truex answered questions following the race.
“We got beat fair and square, that’s the way it goes sometimes,” said Truex, who explained he spun his tires on the restart and was unable to hold off Larson.
RELATED: Truex Jr. says, ‘We don’t have team orders’
The tight racing for the trophy was still good for NASCAR, which may well be hosting a long playoff battle between Truex and Larson — the classes of the field for much of the regular season.
Twice — at Las Vegas and Kentucky — Larson has finished runner-up to Truex, who essentially has spread out his series-best four victories and led the points for all but three weeks since late May. Larson, on the other hand, had only led 10 laps in the seven races between Michigan trophies this summer.
Yet two laps out front and a trophy hoist last weekend show that Larson and his Chip Ganassi Racing team are primed to join Truex in what looks like another compelling playoff run that may well be decided by these potential first-time title winners.
For many long-time NASCAR fans, Larson’s style is reminiscent of Stewart — willing, able and proficient in an assortment of race cars, competing all week, not just on the NASCAR calendar.
Just last weekend, for example, on a much-viewed social media video post, Ganassi gave Larson “permission” to race sprint cars in the historic Knoxville Nationals on Saturday night.
After winning his heat race earlier in the week, Larson finished runner-up to sprint car great — and Stewart’s team driver — Donny Schatz in the championship A Main.
It appears that was a great momentum builder for Larson, who has clearly demonstrated he is a “racer’s racer” driving for a “racer’s owner” in Ganassi.
WATCH: Larson says it ‘feels amazing to steal one’
“I woke up this morning extremely confident about today, just being able to race last night and have a lot of fun and get close to winning,” Larson said Sunday.
“I felt like I was going to win when I woke up this morning, and then we got to one point in the race, and I’m like, man, I don’t feel like I’m going to win now, but we just kept fighting and got it done.
“So your mind and your positive thoughts and everything is so important in life, in general, and today we had some not so positive thoughts, I guess, when I kept lining up on the bottom, but we got to think positive and line up at the top at the end.”
Larson predicted the kind of excitement and thrill fans enjoyed at the end of Sunday’s race may be only a taste of what’s to come. For a sport in a sort of generational transition, that’s good on top of good.
“I think it’s an exciting time,” Larson said. “I think a lot of fans right now are kind of sad that we’re losing (Dale) Junior and some other veterans and stuff that are out of rides right now. But I think it’s a great opportunity for our sport to take advantage of that and build on it, market us young guys and try and bring in younger fans, more fans.
“It’s some exciting times for sure because there’s a lot of young guys that are in the XFINITY or Truck Series that are well capable of being Cup drivers in the future if everything goes right. It’ll be interesting to see, though, how the next handful of years play out, but I think it’s going to be great.”