Did You Notice? … All these extra invites handed out to NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers the past few weeks?
We’ve seen names from Greg Biffle to Sterling Marlin pop up, eager to accept their status among the sport’s elite.
You may not have noticed Kyle Larson has already joined them, as of last week.
I don’t think he’s on the bottom end of that list of 75 either. Larson’s victory at Martinsville Speedway was the 21st of his Cup career, tying him for 38th on the all-time list. Larson is on pace to top the series in laps led for the second time in three years; he’s projected to lead 1,872 at his current pace.
Since joining Hendrick Motorsports, Larson has now won 15 times in 81 starts running the No. 5 Chevrolet, an impressive 18.5% win percentage.
Should those stats continue to hold, it would project another five victories, minimum, for Larson in the remaining 27 races this season. And the way HMS is running as a whole, with limited changes expected to even out the Next Gen field during 2023 … could that total inch even higher?
“I think we’re honestly close to as good or just as good as we were in 2021,” Larson said, a year in which he won 10 races en route to the NASCAR Cup Series championship. “I think in the races that we’ve finished and executed well, I think it’s shown. We’ve been up front in every race. We’ve challenged for wins. We’ve shown that we’ve had winning speed at every single race.”
So let’s play this theory out for a minute. Say Larson does reach double-digit victories this year. That would give him 29, good for 30th on the all-time list while passing names like Carl Edwards, Terry Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Keep in mind Larson turns just 31 years old in July. At that age, Jimmie Johnson hadn’t yet won his first Cup championship. But everyone knows what happened during the five years after that … 35 victories and five straight Cup championships from his age-31 season of 2006 through 2010.
Heading into that 2006 season, Johnson had 18 total victories at age 30. Larson was one ahead of him at 19 at the start of this year.
Where did Johnson end up? Sixth on the all-time list with 83 victories. It’s the type of trajectory you can see Larson heading toward if two things tilt his way.
One: he remains the best of the four-driver team at HMS. Chase Elliott and William Byron, in particular, might end up Larson’s closest competition in years to come….
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