Kyle Larson is not only seeking his second NASCAR Cup Series title on Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway, but also the chance to move closer to the champions who came before him.
“I really looked up to Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, and they’re multi-time champions,” Larson said during Championship 4 media day. “So, for me to win a second would get me closer to reaching … they are kind of my goals, I feel like. So, I would like to get to them and hopefully surpass them someday.
“I think that’s what would feel great about winning a second one, as well as a lot of other reasons.”
Stewart is a three-time Cup Series champion from 2002, 2005 and 2011. Gordon won four championships during his career, doing so in 1995, 1997, 1998 and 2001. Both are now NASCAR Hall of Fame members, and Larson drives for the team that Gordon is the vice chairman of.
Larson is the only driver in the championship race who has previously won a title. The No. 5 team from Hendrick Motorsports captured its first in 2021. That season was the second year that Phoenix Raceway hosted the title race.
Phoenix played to Larson’s strengths in winning his first Cup crown in 2021. Chris Graythen/Getty Images
On Sunday, it will be the track’s sixth time as the championship host. But this time around, there are bigger question marks about the strength of Hendrick Motorsports’ flat-track package. Phoenix is a fast, relatively flat one-mile oval, and despite putting drivers in the Championship 4 over the last few seasons, it has not won a championship at the track with the Next Gen car.
“I would say this is probably the best I’ve felt about what we’re bringing for the Championship 4 compared to any other year,” Larson said. “Everyone at Hendrick Motorsports went to work on getting our flat short track program better. We went to Gateway [St. Louis] and were super strong; New Hampshire, we were really good; and Phoenix is somewhat similar to those places.
“So, I feel like we’ll have a better opportunity to win a championship than we’ve ever had in the Next Gen era. That motivates me and gets me excited.”
Larson led 52 laps and finished 12th at St. Louis. He led four laps and finished seventh at New Hampshire two weeks later.
It was a tire test at St. Louis during the summer that has been credited with the Hendrick Motorsports turnaround. Larson, crew chief Cliff Daniels and the No. 5 team were the Chevrolet representatives at the test, and the organization pored over the data ahead of the playoffs.
Sunday’s championship race will be the package’s final and most important showing.
“I think that test at Gateway was extremely important because we got to run through some different setups and thought the new setup was better,” Larson said. “We’ve kind of taken that setup to every short track since then, and the performance has definitely been better. Yeah, it gives you confidence that, all right, it’s probably going to work at Phoenix, but you don’t know until you get on the track. So, just ready to get going and see what we have and get a glimpse of what our weekend might be like.”
