With Kyle Busch out, is Auto Club win in Larson's future?

Posted on March 21, 2015 by

Driver earned career-best second-place finish in this race last year

FONTANA, Calif. — Ending his first full-time season in the Sprint Cup Series as the 2014 Sunoco Rookie of the Year with eight top-fives and 17 top-10 finishes along with one Coors Light Pole Award, Kyle Larson is still searching for more — a win.

It was last year’s Sprint Cup Series race at Auto Club Spedway when the California native’s racing abilities truly began to shine.

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Rightfully earning the admiration of NASCAR veteran Kyle Busch, Larson came up second to Busch in the 2014 Auto Club 400 after fighting hard in the final laps. Busch was able hold Larson off as the Joe Gibbs Racing driver crossed the finish line .214 seconds ahead of the then-rookie, who had won the NASCAR XFINITY Series race just one day earlier.

Now, with Busch being sidelined for injuries sustained in this year’s opening XFINITY Series race at Daytona, it begs the question — what driver will be holding off Larson for the lead this year?

"There’s a lot of good cars and (Kevin) Harvick has definitely been strong so far this season, so I’m sure he’ll be the one to beat," Larson said on Friday at the Auto Club Speedway.

Though 2014 Sprint Cup Series champion Harvick has displayed nothing but dominance so far this season, Larson has already earned himself two top-10 finishes and will start fifth in the field for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX).

"I like this place," Larson said. "It’s tricky because of all the seams and it’s got a pretty worn out surface and you have to search around for all the grip, but it seems to suit my driving style."

The 22-year-old will get plenty of practice on the oldest asphalt on the Sprint Cup Series schedule when he runs in Saturday’s Drive4Clots.com 300 (4 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1), the race that gave Larson the first XFINITY Series win of his career.

But Larson’s run in Saturday’s XFINITY Series race will see him start in a backup car as the No. 42 driver spun out in opening practice after Mike Bliss dropped oil on the track, forcing Larson to make the move.

"We should be OK," Larson said. "I got to make one lap in (the backup car) afterward and it felt fine so hats off to my guys for getting me back out there in that practice to make one lap, that gives me some extra confidence to qualify."

Once the XFINITY Series race is over, Larson will have one thing on his mind: proving that he’s the car to beat in Sunday’s race.

Larson’s crew chief Chris Heroy jokingly recalled a request Larson made after coming up short to Busch last year.

"He came on the radio and asked me if he could do a burnout," Heroy said after the 2014 Auto Club 400. "I told him, ‘Next time, if things work out.’"

Perhaps Larson’s "next time" is now.

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Posted on March 21, 2015 by

Driver credits RCR alliance with early 2015 gains

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FONTANA, Calif. — It’s not hard to get lost in the long roster of drivers when you’re on a single-car team. But when a single-car team driver like AJ Allmendinger is racing up front with NASCAR champions, he’s on everyone’s radar.

The California native comes to Auto Club Speedway for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX) sitting in the top five in driver standings with two top-10s already under his belt and looking to score another this weekend.

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But the No. 47 team isn’t paving the way to single-car success on its own.

Martin Truex Jr. and Casey Mears join Allmendinger’s company. Truex Jr., driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet, sits third in the driver standings and has started his 2015 season scoring nothing but top-10s. Mears, the driver of the No. 13 Germain Racing Chevrolet, is currently 12th in the standings with a top-10 finish in the Daytona 500.

All three are in a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing and from last year to now the gains the organizations have made are astounding.

For Mears, the refining of the alliance has mostly come from understanding the specifics of what goes into a successful race car.

"Just improving communication, it is one thing to get a sheet of paper that says, ‘Hey, here is the setup,’ " Mears said on Saturday. "But when you actually go up and put your arm around the guy that is actually setting that car up and looking at his procedure and understanding how he does it there are a lot nuances. The devil is in the details. I think that we have paid closer attention to a lot of those details, and it is starting to pay off."

"I think we’re working well together," Allmendinger said. "It’s hard when you make an alliance, trying to fit in and see where you fit in and see how much data you truly get … I think a lot last year we were just behind because we did the alliance basically right before 2014. So we were trying to catch up on cars and everything. We didn’t maximize the tools we had, which RCR really allowed us to have pretty much everything we needed."

After a slow churn in the alliance, Allmendinger and the No. 47 team are finally getting their footing and it shows.

"Going into this year, we just looked at ‘OK, how do we make ourselves better,’ " Allmendinger said. "We just started a lot further ahead this year than we were last year. This weekend and last weekend we have a brand new car. It’s one of the first brand new cars from top to bottom we’ve had since the team was with Toyota. Just being ahead has really helped us."

Allmendinger might have gotten a slow start last year before making the 2014 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field, but he scored his first top-10 of the season at the Fontana track.

Looking ahead, Allmendinger recognizes that hard work equals success.

"I’m happy with our team and where it’s going," Allmendinger said. "We’ve got a lot of work to go to be one of those No. 48s and No. 4s and all those teams every weekend, but I can see the hard work is paying off and that’s what’s great from inside the race car and outside of it."

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