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Kyle Larson had a solid race in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season finale in Phoenix on Sunday. He started fourth. He finished in that same position. But he wasn’t vying for the title.
Despite having statistically the best season of all the Cup competitors in multiple major categories, including top fives (15) and wins (6), the Hendrick Motorsports driver was not competing for the championship in the desert. His fourth-place result ended with him finishing sixth in the final season standings.
However, years from now, the 2021 champion, like most of his fellow competitors, won’t remember the last race of the 2024 campaign because of the playoff standings or anything special they did on the race track.
READ MORE:Kyle Larson Admits to Change in Personal Life That His Fans Won’t Like
Instead, they’ll remember it for one of those infamous moments in sports when the pace car driver misjudged the speed and position of the vehicle coming off the track down pit road to resume the start of the second stage and sideswiped the barrels filled with sand. It resulted in a red-flag delay of more than five minutes and a bad case of deja vu for Larson and his fans.
The HMS pilot did something similar in October 2023 at Homestead, attempting to gain ground on Ryan Blaney heading to pit road, misjudged the speed, blasted the barrels and sent a cascading wall of sand into the air and onto the track.
Blaney didn’t think of Larson on Sunday. However, he did have some thoughts.
