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BROOKLYN, Mich. — He lost the race off pit road, and in his mind, victory had slipped from his grasp once again.
So often. So many close calls.
“I thought that was the race right there,” Kyle Larson admitted.
But this time he said it from Victory Lane. Where Sunday at Michigan International Speedway fate chose to frown on someone else.
Confetti flew, fans cheered and fellow competitors stopped by to offer congratulations. Kyle Busch, one of the first to pit road, was waiting for Larson when the young driver finally pulled in for the celebration. Greg Biffle and Brad Keselowski also dropped in. So, too, did Jamie McMurray, Larson’s teammate.
Larson, driver of the No. 42 Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, is 24. And he’s now a first-time winner in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, capturing the Pure Michigan 400 in his 99th career start.
The win secured one of the final playoff spots for this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Championship dreams were rekindled for a driver and team that had ridden on the razor’s edge almost since his arrival in NASCAR.
There have been fuel-mileage plays that didn’t pan out, late charges that ended with bent sheet metal and crushed hopes.
But not this time.
“No question the kid has talent; the kid can drive,” Ganassi said. “We just have to put a weekend together.”
Ganassi knows. He’s won in six different series in which his various teams compete. If it has wheels and goes fast, Ganassi has likely fielded a winner.
Sunday’s outcome was still in question when the late-race battle between Larson and Chase Elliott began to unfold. When the two drivers — both young, eager and winless — hit pit road for green-flag stops on Lap 158, Larson was the race leader.
When they exited just seconds later, Elliott, after all others had stopped for service, was out front.
Larson charged, trimming the deficit to Elliott in half. Lapped traffic erased the gains. And then the caution flag, this one for debris, appeared for a final time.
While crew chief Chad Johnston said he thought the team’s final stop “was a little bit slow,” he refused to change the team’s game plan.
“It’s hard to talk yourself into staying out two more laps or three more laps when you know those guys are gaining … track position with each lap, but the worst thing you can do is let them force your hand and then run it out of fuel at the end,” Johnston said. “So we stood our ground and pitted when we needed to pit, just lost a lot of ground through lapped traffic. …
“We needed that last restart, and Kyle did everything he needed to do to have the lead off (Turn 2).”
Second at Fontana and Loudon and Kansas two years ago; second at Dover this year. Larson’s been third, fourth and fifth several times as well. Often enough that some have questioned how badly he wanted to win, but they’ve never questioned his talent.
“There have been a couple where I could have done things differently to get the win,” Larson, flanked by son Owen and Johnston, said afterward. “For a few months you guys keep asking, ‘What if?’ … Now I’ve won so we don’t have to talk about that anymore.”
Winning races isn’t new for the Elk Grove, California, native. Winning quickly hadn’t been either. Until he got to NASCAR’s top level. Even then, he showed flashes of potential, but potential didn’t outrun everyone.
“This feels different for me because it’s taken me a lot longer than in any of the other stuff to get a win,” Larson said. “It took me a couple of months to win my first sprint car race … a few months to win when I got into USAC. I guess it took me a few years to win an Outlaw race, but I’d still been winning sprint car races.
“But this, after the way my rookie season started, coming close a few times, not getting it done, you can visualize the win that early in your career. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. But it just never happened.
“This one’s different just because of how long we had to wait and how much harder I’ve had to work for it. It’s special because all the hard work’s paid off.”
Ganassi brought Larson up to Sprint Cup when he was only 20. Too soon, some said. He’ll be gone elsewhere, others speculated, where he can be with a winning team.
“That wasn’t the case at all,” Ganassi said, recalling how he once asked his young driver about other teams expressing interest.
“I’ll never forget his answer,” Ganassi said. “He said, ‘They all had a shot at me the first time around and they passed.’ “
They’ll celebrate throwbacks next weekend at Darlington Raceway when the Bojangles’ Southern 500 weekend gets underway. On Sunday at Michigan they were throwing it forward. There’s a new Sprint Cup winner in town.
