Kyle Larson is a people pleaser, which might have been the biggest reason his two attempts at the Double were so frustrating.

“I just completely choked away the day,” Larson said during the “Kyle Larson vs. The Double” documentary that premiered Thursday on Amazon Prime. “I just want it to be perfect for everybody. When I say, ‘Perfect,’ I don’t mean winning, either. I just mean some solid finishes to make everybody at Hendrick happy. I wanted this documentary to go great and have a happy ending. Paint this beautiful picture.”

Of course, that’s not what happened.

Unfortunately, Larson’s two attempts as the fifth driver to race the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day epitomized the motorsports version of Murphy’s Law  – and on the biggest stage.

Rain delays, driver errors, engine misfires.

Everything that could go wrong — especially things that were beyond anyone’s control — did go wrong for Larson in both Indianapolis and Charlotte.

The struggles are documented in detail by the documentary, which must have been an occasionally excruciating watch for the two-time Cup champion.

But Larson was also happy to have his disappointments laid bare for everyone to see.

“I don’t mind it being a sad documentary,” he said. “It’s tough. I think it’s good to show it’s tough. It’s not always perfect.”

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Larson is among a handful of drivers in the world who could win the Indy 500 and Coke 600 on the same day.

It would be natural to think that his largely forgettable Double attempts in both Charlotte and Indianapolis would dissuade others from attempting it.

But Katherine Legge will give it a go this month — marking the first time in 24 years that it’s been tried in consecutive years by different drivers (Tony Stewart’s second and last attempt in 2001 was followed by Robby Gordon in ‘02).

Legge, who was already committed to an Indy 500 attempt before signing up to return to the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports ride at Charlotte Motor Speedway, consulted with Larson before deciding to attempt the Double.

“Kyle’s been wonderful,” Legge said. “Actually, his management, his PR team and everybody have been really great, too. They’ve been helping mine, and so their insight has been invaluable. And I picked his brains. How did you feel it physically? What are the biggest challenges? What should I look out for? What am I going to eat? How am I going to rest? Did you do an IV? All the things.

“He was just super unlucky with the weather. And if I’m lucky, great. If I’m unlucky, then it wasn’t to be. I am not going to worry about it. I’m also not in the position that he’s in – a full-time Cup driver who has points and a championship to think about in his main gig. So I think it’s a slightly different approach as I’m not stressed about Charlotte because I don’t have to worry about the points situation.”

MORE: Why Legge is attempting Double

With her car locked into the Indy 500 (which had no bumping in qualifying this year) and all 39 cars expected to start the race at Charlotte, there is less stress on Legge than the previous Double attempts – all of which lacked the guarantee of making one race or the other.

It could be much harder in future years, but even in the wake of Larson’s trials in 2024-25, there are signs that Legge won’t be the last to attempt the Double.

After openly discussing his desire to run the Indy 500, Carson Hocevar was hanging out in Gasoline Alley last week.

On the IndyCar side, Penske drivers Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin have expressed interest, as has Graham Rahal.

“I welcome anybody to come and give it a shot,” Graham Rahal said. “But it shouldn’t be easy. It genuinely is the old saying, ‘If it’s easy, everybody would do it.’ It shouldn’t be easy. I hope many more give it a shot, for sure.”

The degree of difficulty, as Larson underscored, is part of the attraction.

“I wouldn’t call the whole experience a failure,” Larson said. “I get that question often. Why risk my reputation by doing the Double and ‘failing,’ if you want to call it that. How many race car drivers are there in the world, and how many had the courage to try and do both? I regret making mistakes on the track, but I don’t regret anything. That’s just how races are.”

Ahead of Legge becoming the sixth driver (and the first woman) to attempt the feat, here are some of the reasons why doing the Double is so hard.

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LOGISTICS

It all starts here with the start times. The Indy 500 and Coke 600 weren’t consistently run on the same day until 1974 – and then they were often run concurrently until Charlotte added lights in 1994.

John Andretti attempted the Double in the first year it was possible, despite the tight window.

It depends on caution flags and delays, but the checkered flag for the Indy 500 falls roughly two hours and 45 minutes before the green for the Coke 600.

That’s better than some years (the Double essentially became impossible from 2005-11 when the Indy 500 started well after 1 p.m.), but the scheduling still requires military-grade precision – as well as fast helicopters and planes.

While Larson had Hendrick Motorsports’ aviation infrastructure at his disposal, Legge’s teams will battle the headwinds of being a smaller operation.

AVAILABILITY 

There aren’t many options for teams that have the strong ties needed in both IndyCar and NASCAR to pull this off. Hendrick found a way to partner with Arrow McLaren, but that seems to be the exception in a land of limited opportunities.

Team Penske is the only organization that fields cars in both series from under the same roof (at its sprawling headquarters in Mooresville, North Carolina). Spire Motorsports shares common ownership with Andretti Global, which provides some hope for Hocevar.

But the trick here is that Spire races Chevrolets in NASCAR, and Andretti is a Honda team in IndyCar.

“I wish that we could put the manufacturer classes aside, but we all know the realities of the world,” Rahal said. “We’ve talked about this time and time again. If we want to have more cars at Indy, we’ve got to have more engine manufacturers because we’ve got to have more engines. Until that really changes, it’s going to be a bit of a challenge for anybody to jump in.”

PHYSICALITY 

Consider just the sheer act of trying to race for 1,100 miles at race tracks hundreds of miles apart while splitting roughly equal time between cars with radically different aerodynamic platforms, tires and even steering wheels.

It’s a lot.

Stewart jokes that some days he woke up unsure of whether he was in Indiana or North Carolina during his last attempt 25 years ago. He made two attempts at the Double and would have liked another shot to win the Indy 500 but conceded in a 2024 interview that the Double wasn’t practical as an annual exercise.

“It’s like how many times can you try to abuse yourself to do it,” Stewart said. “It’s not an easy day, and we didn’t have cool suits back then.”

Legge will have the benefit of superior driver comfort aids, and she also has the elite experience of completing endurance races in sports cars.

“I’m hoping that physically I’m OK,” she said. “I think the actual driving you kind of do subconsciously.”

The mental approach might be the most daunting part for Legge, who plans to spend this week watching Indy 500s and Coke 600s to prepare.

“It’s really going to take a toll on you doing that gear change from IndyCar to NASCAR and figuring out, you know, what to do under yellow, what’s that team telling you,” she said. “It’s a different sport, basically. So I think it will depend how quickly I can shift my brain over to that, and I’m thinking about the preparation. I’m going to watch in-car cameras. I’m going to look at data. I’m going to see if I can do the switch without it being too much of a brain mess-up.”