The Toyotas have hit the wall. Hitting the wall in not a good thing anytime you’re running a race, but it’s especially bad this time of year when you’re chasing a NASCAR championship. Toyota, which once loomed above NASCAR like the Jolly Green Giant, appears to have finally been cut down to size by the competition.
Well, maybe we better rephrase that, because if you’re talking about Chevy and Ford, they’re kind of chasing Toyota with baby steps. But if you’re talking about Kyle Larson, that’s an entirely different matter. Because in the playoffs, Larson has become a one man wrecking crew, stomping on Toyota, Ford and even his Rick Hendrick teammates indiscriminately.
Larson’s sudden dominance hasn’t come out of nowhere. From the beginning of the season, when the Toyotas roared off and left everybody choking on their exhaust, Larson and Ford’s Ryan Blaney were doing what they could to keep pace. For Larson, it was a fourth here, a fifth there, a third on the road course at San Diego. Plus -and this is prophetic – a second in the first race at Kansas.
Still, like all the Chevys, Larson was struggling with the car’s redesigned body. And Ford? Well, Ford was just struggling, period. It was apparent, though, that compared to the other Chevys, Larson was struggling less, was closer to figuring things out and getting competitive.
But when the chase started, everyone expected Toyota’s superiority to continue. There was no light at the end of the tunnel until all of a sudden, here came Larson. He opened with a fifth at Darlington. Next, he won for the first time this season at St. Louis, an intermediate track. Then came a second at Bristol and, last Sunday, another win, this time at Kansas.
Winning at St. Louis and Kansas is particularly significant because the Toyotas had owned the intermediate tracks. Going into the first chase race at Darlington, Toyotas had won nine of the 11 intermediate track races to that point.
So now, with six races left to go in the season, Larson isn’t chasing the Toyotas, the Toyotas are chasing Larson. It’s a complete turnround. And if you look at the Old Guy Sport competition index, which is the best measure for judging competitiveness, Larson is in a class by himself.
In the four chase races, Larson has scored a whopping 203 points. For comparison purposes, that’s more than all four Joe Gibbs racing entries, which include season front-runner Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell, put together. Combined, they have 200 points. It’s also more than the four Penske entries (the Wood brothers car, which is essentially built by Penske, is included in this), who have 190 points combined. Larson is also the only driver to have finished in the top five in all four chase races.
And the three other Hendrick cars? Where are they? Well, you really have to search to find them, which proves this is not a Chevy thing and really all about Larson. In the four chase races so far, Alex Bowman has 40 points, William Byron 20 and Chase Elliott comes in with a big fat zero.
It may have been a long time coming, but clearly, Larson is back, even if Chevy isn’t. “It just seems like we were building and ready to kind of capitalize if we got a moment like this where our car and everything kind of came together.” Larson commented after the win at Kansas according to NASCAR’s website. “So just proud of everybody for working so hard for so long now, and then proud of just the execution that they’ve put in here these first four chase) races. We just got to try and keep it up,” Larson added.
Because the NASCAR point system rewards finishing more than racing and because it is designed to keep as many cars as possible in contention for as long as possible, Hamlin is still very much alive in the title chase, only 26 points behind Larson. That deficit could be wiped out in Sunday’s race at Las Vegas, another intermediate track. By the way, Hamlin still leads the OGS competition index with 604 points to Larson’s 486.
Larson knows it isn’t over. “There’s still six races left, and I only have, I think, a 26 point lead on Denny (in the NASCAR standings),” he said. “That could be swallowed up in a hurry. I gained 70 – I scored 76 points today (Sunday). So Denny could go have a max points day next week and I could blow an engine…and I’m down 70-some points right there.”
Still, considering where he was, the fact that Larson is now the man is surprising if not shocking. “Nobody wants to go through the struggle, but the struggle can be so constructive, if you let it be, if you lean in the right way,” Cliff Daniels, Larson’s crew chief, commented, also on NASCAR’s website.
“We have a great company with a lot of great people on the shop floor that are in the teams, engine shop, car shop, leadership,” Daniels said. “Everybody kind of had to check up. ‘Okay, we’re not where we need to be, so let’s not play the blame game. Let’s look within. How do we elevate our process? Our setups?’ Just digging into all the things you have to do,” Daniels said.
And guess what. There is light at the end of the tunnel after all.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Las Vegas Sunday: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Kyle Larson, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at Las Vegas (second race): Hamlin. Top five in second race last year: 1-Hamlin, 2-Larson, 3-Bell, 4-Chase Briscoe, 5-Tyler Reddick.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Kansas picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Reddick, 3-Bell. Kansas winner: Larson. OGS season record: 13-12.
OGS competition index top 10 after 25 races: 1-Hamlin 604 points, 2-Larson 486, 3-Bell 465, 4-Reddick 383, 5-Ty Gibbs 354, 6-Briscoe 340, 7-Ryan Blaney 330, 8-Joey Logano 308, 9-Shane van Gisbergen 226, 10-Chase Elliott 192.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most like Las Vegas): 1-Hamlin 458 points, 2-Larson 288, 3-Reddick 271, 4-Bell 266, 5-Briscoe 175, 6-Elliott 120, 7-William Byron 119, 8-Alex Bowman 80, 9-Corey Heim 78, 10-Logano 73.
