LAS VEGAS — Kyle Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team can breathe easily after winning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon.
That victory propels him to the Championship 4 for the second time in three years. And while the stress of advancing is eradicated, Larson doesn’t anticipate taking his foot off the gas pedal in either of the races at Homestead-Miami Speedway or Martinsville Speedway that precede the Nov. 5 title fight at Phoenix Raceway.
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“Obviously, it’s nice to win and lock in. You can focus on Phoenix,” Larson said. “At the same point, you really can’t look too far ahead of yourself. There’s still two other races before then.”
First on the docket is Homestead-Miami (Sunday, 2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), where Larson dominated a year ago to lead 199 of 267 laps en route to the victory. Larson has long excelled at the South Florida 1.5-mile oval, but last season marks his only trip to its Victory Lane.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself going to Homestead,” Larson said. “I want to have a great run there. I want to dominate, honestly. I want to win both stages by 15 seconds and win the race by 30. That’s my goal.
“I’m not thinking really ahead of Homestead yet. Martinsville, as well. I want to go there and have another good run like we had earlier this year, go into Phoenix with a lot of confidence and momentum.”
That perspective is shared by crew chief Cliff Daniels, who helped guide Larson to the 2021 Cup Series title with a season-long stomp of the competition that resulted in 10 wins in addition to a triumph in the exhibition All-Star Race. Daniels, a fifth-year crew chief, knows the formula that leads to championships. He served as a race engineer for Hendrick’s No. 48 team beginning in 2015, working alongside NASCAR Hall-of-Fame-elect driver Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus en route to the 2016 championship — a record-tying seventh for the driver/crew chief combo.
Any opportunity to let the seven other drivers in the Round of 8 build momentum, Daniels believes, is an opportunity lost for the No. 5 program.
“To me, just from the team exercise dynamic of things, if we say we’re just going to cruise for the next two weeks, then you’re not operating with the edge that I think you’re going to need to win it in Phoenix,” Daniels said. “There’s two more races to win. So now the way I see it is this: Now that we’re in the position that we’re in, we get to play those races to win — a late call, flipping a stage if a caution comes out, whatever it may be — versus having to play the race for points. I think that’s the position it puts us in the next two weeks.
“From a team exercise, all those other guys are so good. They’re going to be pushing hard to win the next two weeks. I think we have to match that intensity, so we’re going into Phoenix with the right level of intensity ourselves, get there with strength.”
The tone is inherently different than that spoken by the No. 22 Team Penske program in 2022 when Joey Logano won to open the Round of 8 at Las Vegas. He and crew chief Paul Wolfe remained adamant all focus ahead was on Phoenix — a strategy that proved fruitful as Logano earned his second Cup championship.
Larson, Daniels and Co. have their own flow, however. Much of that, of course, stems from how Daniels operates. Jeff Gordon, the Hall of Fame four-time champion driver and vice chairman at Hendrick Motorsports, has seen the evolution of the duo since Larson’s welcome to the organization in 2021 and how Daniels has bettered Larson.
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“You take a guy like Kyle and his capabilities, his talent — he’s impressed me with his work ethic too,” Gordon said Sunday. “I wasn’t sure how he approached the Cup Series, especially with Cliff and all the data, all the homework that Cliff gives him, the meetings they have. Cliff is an intense guy, and he brings a lot to the table. It’s a lot of information that you have to absorb.
“He stepped up to the plate and has done everything that the organization can possibly ask out of him and then some. It’s been a great relationship.”
It was just another day in the life of Larson, whose extraordinary week could only be ordinary for him. On Oct. 10, Larson earned the High Limits Sprint Car Series championship just two days before a Thursday rookie orientation to prepare for the 2024 Indianapolis 500. Three days later, he’s in Las Vegas, scoring the victory that launches him toward another chance to win a Cup championship.
“It’s been a memorable week,” Larson said. “A little bit, maybe crazier than normal, but my weeks stay pretty crazy. So it felt pretty normal in a way.”
Such is the superheroic nature of what Larson brings to the track, where he frequently teeters on the edge of control. Larson’s willingness to take risks has resulted in four victories this year and a series-best 14 top-five finishes. But those same daring moves have also resulted in seven DNFs — second-most of anyone this season and all due to crash damage.
Gordon acknowledged those ups and downs and particularly pointed to Texas Motor Speedway, the opening race of the Round of 12, where Larson wrecked while racing for the lead with Bubba Wallace. Two weeks later, Larson crashed during practice at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, relegating the team to a backup car for an elimination race.
For now, those mistakes are in the rear-view mirror with a sealed path to Phoenix. The only question that remains is how bold Larson will be as he chases his second NASCAR Cup Series championship.
