Unlike last year, Kyle Larson hit a bumpy road to start the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season as the defending champion after opening the season with top-20 and top-three finishes at Daytona and Atlanta. Two races later, he finished 16th at Daytona and crashed at Atlanta (now called Echo Park Speedway), leaving him 21st in the standings.
Larson enters the year as the defending champion but has yet to put together a strong game in the opening round. During the Autotrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway, Larson competed with Sean van Gisbergen Fight for the stage finish near the front line. Larsson took the brunt of the blow, which ultimately ended his run and caused him to slip down the rankings.
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Still, Larson isn’t losing any sleep over it, even though he knows stacking up completions will be important in the long run. He said, “There’s still 20 (24) games left or whatever is left, so yeah, obviously you don’t want to complicate it, but everybody wants to make a big deal out of points and other things, points games, points games, but it’s too early. To me, I really don’t think it changes that much.”
As for the race itself, he hopes to regain his calling in the second stage. Larson ducked low into the lane of SVG No. 97 as he ran to third track racing Chevrolet. A collision at the exit of Turn 4 sent Larson into the outside wall on the front stretch, tearing the car apart.
“Yeah, I just messed up. I knew #45 was in the corner of my body and got rid of him. I didn’t realize #97 was inside him,” this hendrick motorsports the driver said.
“So, once I got that clear, I just wanted to shorten the distance and take a shortcut to the end of the stage. The No. 97 car disappeared from my rear view mirror and I just swerved left and right and hit him. So, no one else did anything wrong but me, so it was all on me, and (I) hated it.”
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He was frustrated with how it slipped away because LarsenIt felt like he had a real chance to take the checkered flag. He said it stung because he knew he was causing it.
On a track like this, he often gets caught up in the chaos of others, but this time, he raised his hand and added: “It was completely my fault. So that’s what’s embarrassing and frustrating and I’m glad no one else was hurt by it as well.”
Even so, Larsson noted that the car had speed and he had felt comfortable up until that moment. He said he would rather go home with a result worth remembering than go home with a DNF and 32nd place.
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Larson knows he’s wrong, but he believes teams are moving forward a little bit every time they play on the draft circuit, especially in Atlanta. At all points in the race, he came away wishing he was still in the fight at the end of the lap.
The article Everybody Wants Big Things: Regretful Kyle Larson Not Worried About Poor Start to Cup Season appeared first on SportsRush.