Kyle Larson ready for double duty: Starting 19th at Indy, 2nd at Charlotte

INDIANAPOLIS — All fans need to know about Kyle Larson and how he will handle the second attempt at racing 1,100 miles in one day is how he handled two recent wrecks while preparing for the Indianapolis 500.

“You see me crash all the time,” Larson said May 16 after his second crash of his Indianapolis 500 car in the previous three weeks. “I don’t think it usually affects me.”

Nothing really seems to bother Larson, except for maybe the constant questions. The most common one: How he will handle the physical strain of competing in the Indianapolis 500 (where he will start 19th Sunday afternoon) and the Coca-Cola 600 (where he will start second Sunday night) on the same day. Among the others: If he is worried about the weather and what are the differences between an INDYCAR and a stock car.

Crashing a car? That’s easy to roll off his back.

“I try to look at the positives of it,” Larson said. “I don’t want to crash, but I crashed.

“I learned a lot. I’m sure the team is going to look at the data and learn a lot from it, my teammates as well.”

For the relaxed Larson, the double is another challenge as part of a racing career that includes one Cup title and 32 victories in NASCAR’s top series, as well as several victories in the top sprint-car and dirt late model events.

Few doubt his ability to potentially become just the second driver ever to complete all 1,100 miles in the sport’s biggest event and one of NASCAR’s most storied races. Only Tony Stewart, in 2001, completed all the miles in finishing sixth at Indy and third at Charlotte.

Larson’s first attempt at the double last year was washed out — a rain delay in Indianapolis forced him to choose which race to start, and he chose the Indy 500 (that won’t be the case this year).

But for a driver, just experiencing the Indy 500 can be an overwhelming experience. Not for Larson. He compared it to, of all things, becoming a parent.

“A lot of times people stress themselves out for no reason here with the Speedway and like, ‘This is the craziest race in the world and this is the wildest thing you ever do in your life, and qualifying and this and that,’” Larson said. “And you’re like, ‘S— maybe it is crazy.’

“But after you get to do it, it’s just normal. Everybody set the expectations like it was going to be wild, and nothing was too wild just because I was expecting everything to be crazy. It’s like when you have a child and everybody’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s the hardest thing in the world.’ And then when you have your baby, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is normal.’”

Nothing is normal about what he is attempting this weekend. 

Larson had final practice Friday for the Indianapolis 500 and ranked 26th out of the 33 cars. After a mandatory autograph session and drivers’ meeting Saturday in Indianapolis, he flew to Charlotte on Saturday to practice and qualify the Cup car. He was 21st in practice but rebounded to post the second-fastest lap in qualifying.

Starting 19th in the Indianapolis 500 this year will be much different than starting fifth, as he will be in the middle of all the turbulence of the 11 rows of three at the start.

“Definitely running the race last year and going through some restarts and after falling back and having to be mid-pack … there was a lot that I learned throughout it last year. And hopefully, I’ll be better prepared for … this year,” Larson said. 

Larson didn’t do extra pit-road practice because of the speeding penalty last year because he knows what the issue was.

“Last year, we had one of the master [brake] cylinders bottomed out, so that’s why I was speeding,” Larson said. “I got to the brakes a lot earlier than I had been in practice and stuff last year, but the pedal worked.

“So that was a bummer, but at least I knew what that felt like, and if I have a similar feeling pedal, I would probably take it even more easy. My brakes have felt really good.”

The weather looks good for Larson. If there are any issues, they could come in Charlotte, and the team knows when Larson would have to leave if there is an issue in order to get to driver introductions for the Coke 600 at 5:25 p.m. Eastern (the command to fire engines is scheduled for 6:16 p.m. Eastern). To get there, Larson will need the Indy 500 to start on time (12:47 p.m. Eastern green flag) and not have any extended red flags.

Without having to sweat the weather, now Larson will just have to sweat the race itself. It hasn’t been an easy month for Larson, whose wrecks were the result of learning how the 2025 version of an INDYCAR handles with 100 pounds of extra weight at the rear of the car with the new hybrid system.

“If there’s somebody that can adapt to a race car, it’s him,” said Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan, whose organization partners with Hendrick for the Indy 500 effort. “He figures it out pretty quick. So I have zero concerns on how quick he can come up to speed.

“He had a pretty good year last year, and then he tried a little too hard [this year] and went over a little bit. And then we had to be conservative. But now the race is coming.” 

The NASCAR Cup Series points leader, Larson acknowledges that this will possibly be his last attempt for a while at doing the double. It takes a monumental logistical effort and his only INDYCAR start came in the 500 last year, where he saw a potential top-10 finish wiped away by a pit-road speeding penalty and he finished 18th.

By the time he completed the rain-delayed Indy 500, the Coke 600 had already started. Larson got to Charlotte as quickly as possible, but rain arrived with him and the 600 ended up a rain-shortened event. Larson never got in his Cup car, which was driven by Justin Allgaier.

Allgaier will once again be in the Cup car when Larson can’t be in it, but Larson has committed to making the 600. New NASCAR rules dictate if he doesn’t start the race, he forfeits all his regular-season playoff points, which could heavily impact his ability to advance in the Cup playoffs. Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan will race the 500 if Larson leaves prior to the start of the race.

“Kyle’s a true racer,”  said Kanaan, a former Indy 500 winner whose organization fields Larson’s Indy 500 car in partnership with Hendrick. “I don’t think I need to sit here and talk about his qualities because I think the results shows it.

“But Kyle’s biggest advantage is he adapts pretty quickly because he races everything. He complains a lot less than all of us. … The first two days [of Indy practice, he says], ‘The car is fine, the car is fine.’ You can see engineers getting a little like, ‘Whoa, it can’t be fine.”

Kanaan realized it was fine when he got in the car on Thursday to do some laps just in case Larson has to leave Indianapolis because of weather to get to Charlotte.

Larson and Kanaan were teammates in winning the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona, and Kanaan expects Larson to thrive.

“He already amazed me there when he was pretty young. No road-course background, came in there with me and [Scott] Dixon there, ran the same lap times in the race,” Kanaan said. “Thank God he’s in NASCAR, not INDYCAR.”

Larson is still a newbie in INDYCAR, and the biggest difference in the car is the hybrid system, which adds about 100 pounds to the rear of the car. It has made the car tougher to drive and more on edge. Larson has wrecked twice while in a qualifying setup, once at the Indy 500 test a few weeks ago and then Friday in practice.

“When you turn the boost up for your speed lap, usually it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ You’re flying,” Larson said about the wreck when doing laps of about 215-220 mph. “But that didn’t feel like as crazy as what the open test felt like when I turned it up for the first time.

“So I’m happy that the speed didn’t really scare me or anything like that. As long as the car is OK, we’ll be fine.”

The team had the car fixed and Larson was set for qualifying on Saturday.

Larson takes it in stride and he said he feels just as excited this year as he did last year.

“It doesn’t feel like work,” Larson said. “It’s the same. I don’t get too overly excited about anything. It just seems normal, like another race week.”

But there does seem to be a little bit of difference. While the spotlight is still there, everyone is more used to seeing Larson in Indianapolis.

“I feel like last year because it was my first time ever, I feel like I did a really good job of taking everything in and spending time signing every single autograph and doing all the rookie stuff I had to do,” Larson said.

“This year seems a little bit calmer. But it’s still much larger than any other event I get to run.”

So doesn’t that add pressure? At least for the legacy of a driver considered one of the current great racers worldwide?

“Say it doesn’t go good, say I DNF [don’t finish] both races, I don’t think it hurts anything,” Larson said about his legacy. “But if you do good, it definitely helps. So that part of it’s cool.

“But it’s not really anything I think about right now. Maybe down the road when you’re at the tail end of your career. … Right now, I don’t really think about the legacy side of it. I just love to race, and I want to do both races, and try to do a good job and have fun with everything.”

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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