CONCORD, N.C. – The road to the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship wasn’t as easy as Kyle Larson made it look.
Larson and the No. 5 HendrickCars.com team faced adversity, most notably in last year’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. The Round of 12 elimination race served as a turning point - one where the driver from Elk Grove, California, thought his title hopes might be done to one of his biggest triumphs of the season.
"We were pretty solid all year long," Larson recalled. "When we overcame the electrical issues at the (Charlotte) ROVAL after being at risk of not transferring to the next round for a little while during the race, that was a major confidence booster for our team.
"To overcome that and come back to win, said a lot about perseverance and leadership. I feel like that was a moment throughout the playoffs where it was like, 'we are the championship contenders. We do have the best team in the field and we’re dangerous.'"
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Larson entered the playoffs as the regular-season champion and had won the Round of 16 NASCAR elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway. However, multiple issues in the middle of the race at the Charlotte ROVAL threatened to derail the promising season. Voltage issues left Larson’s advancement in peril in the Round of 12 finale.
Car chief Jesse Saunders and hauler driver Steven Legendre led the effort to change the battery in the middle of stage two. A longer stop during the break after stage two saw the team fix the alternator belt before the restart of the final stage on lap 54, while keeping the driver on the lead lap.
"When that was happening, I was just like, I can’t believe we dominated most of the season and this is going to take us out of winning a championship," Larson said. "I was just like this is not right. This is not fair. This is not how it should end and I can’t believe it.
"It was a little bit stressful and just hoping they were going to diagnose what happened and be able to fix it. Once they did, I was like let’s just not screw this day up anymore. Let’s just get a top 20 and get out of here and move on."
The calmness shown during the work on the car in that race was a reflection of the steady leadership of crew chief Cliff Daniels.
"Cliff is a great leader," Larson said. "I love having him on top of our pit box and just steering our team in the right direction and putting all the puzzle pieces together. I believe there’s nobody better than Cliff."
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After restarting 36th on lap 54, he was in the top 20 by lap 61. A pit stop for fresh tires on lap 75 allowed him to move quickly into the top 10 on lap 78. After pitting under caution on lap 88, Larson was fourth for the restart on lap 90 and was quickly up to second with 18 laps to go in the 109-lap event. Restarting second with eight laps to go, Larson wasted no time getting the lead and would win his seventh race of the year and second of the playoffs.
"As the race went on, our car was good and we had some good pit strategy and cautions falling our way," Larson said. "I was able to have a great car to pass for the win there late on a restart. Went from a day I thought could end our season to ending the day as being extremely confident."
From there, he went on to win three more playoff races, including the championship race at Phoenix Raceway to secure his first Cup Series championship.
Larson will look to continue his playoff run and defend his Charlotte ROVAL win on Sunday, Oct. 9, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.