CONCORD, N.C. -- The stars seemed to align for Kyle Larson Sunday night during the 600-mile race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The 28-year-old driver led 327 laps of the 400-lap event, won all three stages and eventually took the checkered flag to give Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick his record-breaking 269th NASCAR Cup Series win.
“I wanted to be the guy to do it,” Larson said. “Even if the four (drivers) didn’t mention it, I think we all were putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to be the guy to get Mr. H that record-breaking win. It’s been a heck of a season for all of us and we’ve all be able to win early on in the year. It’s cool to get this record broken and now look to building and winning even more.”
Sweetening the win, Chase Elliott placed second and William Byron and Alex Bowman were fourth and fifth, respectively, putting all Hendrick Motorsports drivers inside the top-five finishing order. The last three races have been a dominant affair for Hendrick Motorsports after the organization finished 1-2-3-4 at Dover two weeks ago and finished 1-2 at Circuit of The Americas last week.
Larson was finished second at both Dover and COTA and was the runner-up at Richmond three weeks ago. Instead of being frustrated that he was so close to winning three races in a row, Larson used the placements as positive reinforcement that the No. 5 team was checking off all the right boxes.
“I think Ricky Bobby said, ‘If you’re not first, you’re last,’ but second’s not that bad!” Larson said. “I think, with those second (places), it gave us a lot of confidence as a team because, especially those last couple of seconds, we were right there. We did everything we could to win – we were in the right positions to win, especially at COTA.
“We had a lot of confidence and, weirdly enough, I’ve finished second three times in a row before and won the fourth race. I got the pole at Fontana that time, got the pole here this weekend, so I felt like everything was lining up for us. I had a lot of confidence going into today that history was going to repeat itself and, sure enough, it did.”
Now Larson is looking to do his part to widen out the all-time wins record and keep Hendrick Motorsports at the top. While the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE is ready to help the organization get more wins and championships, he also feels the motivation from Hendrick.
“I’m just very thankful for him being able to get me into his race car with this awesome race team,” Larson said. “I think we all can agree he’s one of the most well-respected people that we’ve ever met in our lifetime. Just an honor to be able to race for him and I look forward to hopefully having a long career here and winning lots of races.”