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Kyle Larson: "We definitely stole the win" at Richmond

Kyle Larson doesn’t mind being accused of driving like he stole it.

Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet

Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet

Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet celebrates his win
Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Race winner Kyle Larson, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford, Matt Kenseth, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

On Saturday night, he was in the right place at the right time to win the Federated Auto Parts 400.

Did Larson have the fastest race car at Richmond Raceway? No. That honor went to regular-season champion Martin Truex Jr., who led 198 of 403 laps until he was wrecked by Denny Hamlin following a questionable late-race caution. 

However, on the final pit stop before an overtime restart, Larson’s pit crew got the No. 42 Chevrolet out first, putting him in position to capitalize on the stellar pit work.

“Yeah, we definitely stole the win, I guess you could say, or our pit crew I felt like stole the win because they got me off as the leader,” Larson said. “Richmond and Martinsville are probably my worst race tracks, and you can throw Loudon in there, too. I know I've got some good finishes there and ran really strong there early in the year, but historically these style of tracks don't suit me.

"I know everybody says I grew up short track racing, but this is way different than sprint car racing on a short track. This is really, really slow, heavy braking, off the throttle a lot, taking care of your tires, where sprint car on a quarter mile you're still wide open a lot of times, depending on how the track is. This is different, and I've had to learn a lot. I feel like I've definitely gotten better at it. I can go really fast on the short runs and stuff at all these shorter flat tracks, but it seems like I struggle on the long run, which I did tonight, but it came down to a short run, and we got the win.”

Larson has improved his game everywhere this season. And his team, Chip Ganassi Racing, has upped the ante as well. Since Ganassi joined the NASCAR ranks in 2001, never has a driver of his earned four wins in a season — and there are still 10 races remaining on the schedule.

Championship hopes

For the first time since moving to the Monster Energy Cup Series ranks in 2014, Larson has his best shot to race for the title. 

No, Larson doesn’t have as many bonus points as series leader Truex Jr., who currently leads the standings by 20 playoff points over the No. 42 Ganassi Racing team. And Larson probably doesn’t have the level of speed that most of the Toyotas possess. 

But what Larson does possess is momentum after winning at Richmond. He also has the tunnel vision to focus laser-like on the task at hand — winning the season finale and the championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Feels amazing,” Larson said following his win. “But to have our pit crew perform like they did tonight makes me feel very proud for them and our whole organization. I'm not a very good short track racer, so for us to come here and challenge for the win and get the win, it feels great.  

“Hopefully we can carry this momentum off into the playoffs and make it through the three rounds or whatever it is to make it to Homestead and go for the championship. I feel like I'd have a really good shot there this year.”

Keeping up with Truex

After Larson’s Richmond win, he is tied with Truex for most victories this season. Clearly, Larson will have to pick up more stage wins throughout the playoffs. Truex topped the tour with 18 stage wins followed by Kyle Busch’s 11. Brad Keselowski was third on the list with four stage wins, and Larson was tied for fourth at three stage victories with Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney and Matt Kenseth. 

But winning races cures a lot. And Larson’s pit crew was on the money Saturday night. While other Ford and Chevy drivers continued to throw shade on Toyota’s dominance, Larson chooses the high road — and the high line — and hits the gas. If there’s an opening, he takes advantage of the situation. But as stout as Truex has been all season, Larson know the No. 78 Furniture Row team will be hard to top down the stretch.

“I don't know if it's like politics or what, or why ‑‑ I complain about it, too, I guess, a little bit that the 78 in particular is just way faster,” Larson said. “I mean, everybody can see it. I've got the same amount of wins as him, but he should have probably have like 10 or 12 wins if things would go his way more often. But he's been the class of the field all year, and the Toyotas in general have been really strong here the last few months.  

“But I look at it as we all just have to work harder. Chevy is an amazing manufacturer that we work really hard, and Hendrick on the engines, they work really hard  But at our race shop, we build all of our own chassis and bodies, and all we get supplied is engines and transmissions from Hendrick. It's cool to be the next best, I would say, to Toyota right now, or really the 78 car.  So we've just got to work hard and get to where they're at. Toyota and TRD, they've done a really good job, and we all have some catching up to do.”

Regardless, at 25, Larson is just getting started. While he earned his first win last year and qualified for the Chase, the No. 42 team seems to have elevated its game to a whole new level.

“I think what I can point to for this being a breakout season is just better race cars,” Larson said. “In the past up until this season, we never start the year off good. We get fast and contend for wins, but it takes ‑‑ we're always behind kind of fighting before we get to around this time of year, and this year we started off really good. I knew if we could start off a season as good as what we'd ended, we'd have a shot at wins, and we were able to do that and actually be better I feel like than where we ended last year to start this year.  

"So it's really helped our season, and our team is just working really well together, Chad (Johnston, crew chief) and Phil (Surgen, race engineer) and Jerame (Donley, race engineer) everybody, all the engineers, really just everybody at the race shop works so hard and brought great race cars to the track, and that's really what it takes.”

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