Inside The Garage: Kyle Larson Returns to Kansas, Site of Last Win 32 Races Ago

Here’s what’s happening this week Inside The Garage: Bristol Motor Speedway (Bristol, Tenn.) — Kyle Larson will return to Kansas Speedway this weekend, the site of his last race win nearly a year ago. Well, he has won something in that time. He won a championship. But not a race. In the world of NASCAR Cup Series racing, Larson heads to what should be a discouraging milestone. The highly talented, highly regarded driver has gone 32 races without a race win and returns to the track of his most recent victory. The fact he has had a triumph, though, has certainly mitigated any pain, as he won his second Cup title by finishing the best among the championship-eligible finalists in the 2025 season finale at Phoenix. [NASCAR TAKEAWAYS: Ty Gibbs Captures First Career Cup Victory] The Hendrick Motorsports driver also has had a combined six second-place and third-place finishes, including a third Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway where he led a race-high 284 laps. “It’s kind of wild to think it’s been almost a year since I’ve won because I don’t feel like we’re that bad,” Larson said in a virtual news conference five days before Bristol. “Ultimately, celebrating the championship in Phoenix felt like a win in a lot of ways. “We want to get back to Victory Lane. We’re working as hard as we ever have worked. We want to win. … This series is tough. I know a lot of times we’ve made winning maybe look easy, but it’s not. And I’ve never felt that it was easy. So we’ve just got to keep working at it.” Considered one of the most talented drivers (Larson has 32 career Cup victories) no matter the car, Larson has won in sprint cars and other NASCAR series since his win last May at Kansas. So he has had that winning feeling after several races, not just the championship last November. His team, though, has not. “We’re very aware that we haven’t won on a Sunday. And yes, the championship is one thing, but we haven’t taken the checkered flag in probably a calendar year by now,” Larson crew chief Cliff Daniels told me after the Bristol race Sunday. “With our evolution of the team and probably being a little bit more seasoned in how we handle some of these things, I think, more than ever, now we know that we can’t get emotional, get sad.” Daniels was relatively upbeat Sunday after a race where Larson had a dominant car early. But as the track and conditions changed, he didn’t have as strong a car. It was still a weekend that he and Larson could feel good about. “We executed great,” Larson told me and other reporters after the race. “I thought our pit crew did an awesome job. … The way I executed through lap traffic was good with a loose race car. “It could have been worse. And I felt like we made the most out of the day.” Larson and Daniels have worked together since Larson joined Hendrick for the 2021 season. They won a championship right away with a 10-win season in 2021. They have won 14 races in the four-plus years since then, as NASCAR moved to the Next Gen car, which has created more parity. The team changed over-the-wall pit crew members last season and have had additional changes to the team for this season when it comes to the engineering staff. “[Daniels] is the most competitive person I know, so I’m sure it’s killing him that we haven’t won in almost a year now, but I feel like he’s doing a good job of harnessing his emotions and keeping us all focused,” Larson said. “Because I think if he let loose like maybe he would have if he was still the same Cliff as 2022, the guys would just be beat up and that’s never a good thing. I’m super happy with Cliff and super happy with all of our team. It’s just we haven’t gotten the wins.” Larson sits sixth in the Cup standings, certainly a position where he can win a championship from, especially if the team incrementally improves as it continues to learn the new Chevrolet body introduced this year. “We’re reasonably solid to start the year,” Daniels told me. “There’s certainly areas that we can be better. … You know, how do you eat an elephant? It’s one bite at a time. “And our day will come, and our team is going to keep building and getting stronger, and that’s the focus.” Larson can get on board with that. “I feel like we’re really close, like we could have won four to five races in this time span of not winning, maybe even more,” Larson said. “It just hasn’t happened. So we can’t lose focus on the process and just keep working hard.” No Talladega For McFarland NASCAR says it wants to see Cleetus McFarland at more short tracks in O’Reilly Series before granting approval for a 1.5-mile track (a higher speed track). So the YouTube star can’t do Kansas this weekend to get approved for Talladega the following week. McFarland was hopeful that he could race Talladega based on finishing the Rockingham race on the 1-mile oval. But a few out-of-control moments were apparently a little too much for NASCAR to grant him approval to its top developmental series. McFarland remains approved for all tracks in the ARCA and truck series. “We’re all huge Cleetus fans,” NASCAR EVP John Probst said in a statement released by the sanctioning body. “We all watch his videos and are certainly very appreciative of everything he’s done in our sport and will continue to do in our sport. … We’d like to see more out of Cleetus in the short tracks. “So we’re not saying no [forever], but there is more that we would like to see out of Cleetus before we would approve him for Talladega.” McFarland said in a Facebook video post: “I’ve got a lot to learn … It’s a little bit of a kick in the nuts but I’ve just got to get out there in other cars and do as much learning as possible.” In The News — Andretti Global has confirmed it won’t field a fourth car for the Indy 500, as Colton Herta can’t do the race because Formula 2 has added an event at Montreal for that same weekend. So far, 31 Indy 500 rides have been announced. Abel Motorsports is expected to field car for Jacob Abel. One more Chevy and one more Honda are still possible but not definite. — Talladega’s first stage will be longer than the final two stages to try to mitigate the fuel-mileage incentives, with the tentative plan being a 98-lap first stage and 45-lap final two stages. The final two stages won’t require a fuel stop. — Joe Gibbs Racing still has a temporary restraining order keeping Chris Gabehart from performing similar duties from his former JGR competition director role in his new role as chief motorsports officer at Spire. A decision could come this week after the TRO was extended through Thursday. — Front Row Motorsports did not appeal Chandler Smith’s disqualification from the Rockingham truck race for being too low in post-race inspection. Smith rebounded with a second-place finish at Bristol to take over the points lead. — INDYCAR drivers Alex Palou and Pato O’Ward participated in a Firestone tire test last Tuesday at Nashville Superspeedway. It was at Nashville that O’Ward had the lead and then a tire failure. Firestone developed a new right front for Phoenix based on that issue and this test built on what was learned from there. — Legacy Motor Club has a new president: JGR Chief Operating Officer Michael Guttilla, who will report to Legacy CEO Cal Wells. Guttilla was a Multimatic engineer for decades and a vice president there before joining JGR in 2023. Legacy and JGR collaborate some as Toyota teams and JGR approved the move. Under The Radar Dawson Sutton slapped the wall in truck series practice at Bristol but rebounded to finish seventh in the race. The next day, he won the CARS Tour pro late model race at the Nashville Fairgrounds. Picture This Social Spotlight They Said It “I’ve got to tuck my tail and take it on the chin and move on. No one was happy about it.” — Bubba Wallace on wrecking Carson Hocevar at Martinsville. In Inside The Garage, Bob Pockrass takes us behind the scenes of the motorsports world the way only he can.