LEBANON, Tenn. — The last time Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season championship, he went on to win his first Bill France Cup at Phoenix Raceway in 2021. But as the battle for the regular-season title winds down this time around, Larson finds himself 85 points behind the top spot in the standings and 65 down in one key area — stage points.
Despite a 16.5 average finish, weighed down heavily by five DNFs, Larson has a pair of victories and top-10 finishes in nearly half the races so far heading into Sunday’s contest at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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But even with the numerous strong finishes, Larson has noticeably had trials throughout the early portions of races that leave him sitting well behind the top contenders in the stage points category — a big factor in the regular-season championship and bonus 15 playoff points. It’s part of the on-track performance that Larson knows can be a key opportunity in the final 10-race stretch before the NASCAR Playoffs.
“We’ve lost quite a bit here lately, we haven’t been able to get any stage points I feel like all season, since the beginning of the year,” Larson said. “If we can start running better in the whole race and not just being there at the end like we have been. I mean, we’ve been contending for wins but stage points and wins is an area that I feel like we’ve lacked in for whatever reason — I don’t know why. But if we can get to racking up more points then yeah, I think we can get up there.
“But the stages are really important and that’s just an area where we’ve lost out on some opportunities.”
Though Larson is tied for fifth (with Kevin Harvick) with 99 stage points through 16 races this season, he trails four drivers who have already broken the 100-point threshold: Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron (164), Ross Chastain (131), Denny Hamlin (122) and Martin Truex Jr. (105). Byron also leads the series with seven stage wins, followed by Chastain with five.
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The good news for Larson is that he won the inaugural Cup Series race at Nashville in 2021, leading a dominant 264 laps to score 59 points, and finished fourth last season. In both races combined, he scored an impressive 29 of a possible 40 stage points.