By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Sometimes, drivers have a clean, quiet day across 400 miles of night racing. And sometimes, you’re Kyle Larson, who seemed to experience every fallback possible in Saturday night’s KC Masterpiece 400 from Kansas Speedway.
But he was fast.
After spinning in Friday qualifying, Larson started from the rear of the 38-car field in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. And by the end of Stage 1 on lap 80, he was fifth, the only Chevy in the top 10.
It continued upward in Stage 2 when he grabbed the race lead on lap 131 and led for 83 consecutive laps, winning his first stage of 2018.
“We had a really good car,” Larson said. “I always run well here at Kansas, so it was nice to lead some laps.”
So, where do the fallbacks come in?
It started with a restart with 35 laps to go where Kevin Harvick passed Larson for the top spot. From there, Larson fell back to third and fell victim to Ryan Blaney for the position. And that’s where contact was made.
“Blaney was side-drafting really hard,” he said. “I was as high as I could get. Made contact whenever and we had a bunch of damage.”
The contact ended Blaney’s day and forced Larson to pit from third to repair the left-rear tire rub. And following the violent lap 254 wreck with William Byron, Clint Bowyer and others, Larson was given one more restart to make ground on the high lane.
Restarting 13th with nine laps to go, Larson pushed forward to finish fourth. A solid finish regarding the late drama, however, leading 101 laps from the rear, Larson wanted to end it with a win for Chevrolet.
“I hate we didn’t turn it into a win,” he said. “It’s satisfying to see how much speed our car had. Good to show Chevy does have a lot of speed, at least with the No. 42 team.”
The troubles may lead to penalties this week after the rear window appeared to sag on the No. 42, an issue that has already led to stiff penalties multiple times in 2018.
Larson believes it was caused by the damage between himself and Blaney.
“I didn’t have it until after Blaney and I got together,” he said. “Who knows. I got a ton of damage back there, these cars and rigid and one piece of damage can affect the whole car. We’ll see what NASCAR says about it.”