Bob Pockrass
FOX Motorsports Insider
Kyle Larson knew going into the Homestead-Miami Speedway weekend that he would have a chance to accomplish a great racing feat.
Competing in all three NASCAR national series, Larson had the opportunity to sweep a triple-header weekend of truck, Xfinity and Cup races.
Only one driver has done it, and that’s Kyle Busch, who did it at Bristol in 2010 and then again in 2017.
“I guess you can consider it a bucket list kind of thing,” Larson said heading into the weekend. “It is a really tough feat to do it.”
Larson found out how tough it is because, ultimately, the racing gods decided this wouldn’t be his weekend. But he likely won’t argue too much with how things worked out.
He won the truck race on Friday for Spire Motorsports with an incredible rally, after taking a spin in the final stage. Then, Larson appeared to be cruising to the Xfinity victory on Saturday, when a late caution resulted in an overtime restart.
Sam Mayer got into the back of Larson on the restart, and Larson wound up a disappointing fourth.
Yet, he still capped the weekend in spectacular fashion, chasing down teammate Alex Bowman for the victory.
“I was pretty disappointed after the [Xfinity] race [but] I woke up this morning feeling for the most part fine. Motivated. But fine [and] kind of over the finish,” Larson said about his mindset.
That might have been the case, but Larson also indicated he probably didn’t take the best of attitudes into the Cup race. In fact, he said he felt he entered the race with an immature attitude about racing at a mile-and-a-half track where he has been known to dominate with the ability to run the high line up by the fence.
“I just wanted to take the green flag and kick everybody’s ass,” Larson said after the win. “I wanted to get the lead early and just dominate like I was [in Xfinity].
“Then the green flag flew, and it was like the opposite. I was going backwards and getting pissed off in the helmet and just frustrated, but just figured that that day was not going to go like that.”
So Larson left Homestead proud of winning the Cup race. He had to grind it out and make a comeback, even if it wasn’t the way he envisioned it. Of course, he probably couldn’t envision also having a hole in his exhaust system, thanks to contact with Josh Berry on pit road.
However, with Larson, adversity seems to push him. Maybe his own mistakes (like the spin on Friday) fuel him more. And the fact he knows he’s so good at Homestead makes him realize he’s never out of it.
So Larson leaves Homestead content knowing he earned a victory at a track where he often sees the win slip away.
“I’m proud of myself for kind of overcoming that immature mindset before the race and just digging down deep to stay in it because it wasn’t a typical Homestead for me,” Larson said. “I was never able to get the lead until it really mattered, where typically I lead all the laps that don’t matter except for the last one.
“I’m just proud that we were able to keep our heads in it.”
This won’t be Larson’s last time trying to sweep a weekend. He’ll try again in a few weeks at Bristol, a track where he also runs well but arguably not as well as Homestead.
If he doesn’t get it done then, who knows when he will have another chance? Cup drivers are limited to five Xfinity and five truck races each year, and they can’t do the regular season finale nor the playoff races in those series.
And because Larson loves to race sprint cars, to have a triple-header weekend where he can land a ride for trucks and Xfinity and not be running off somewhere else to race isn’t exactly an easy one to schedule.
“You would certainly like to see him accomplish it because he’s deserving of it,” Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon said. “It also goes to show you how hard it is to do.”
Larson knows that first-hand. And he knows only one great driver (Kyle Busch) has accomplished it.
“To join him in something like that would be pretty special,” Larson said.
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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