Kyle Larson’s ‘Month of May’ is already one to remember

Larson passed then-leader Denny Hamlin at the start of a two-lap overtime Sunday night at Kansas Speedway, then went toe-to-toe with Chris Buescher before escaping with a 0.001-second victory that had to be confirmed by a video and photo review.

The win officially goes down as the closest finish in NASCAR history since the advent of electronic timing and scoring.

Larson’s win over Buescher now supplants a pair of iconic races that shared the top spot previously with a margin of victory of 0.002 seconds – Ricky Craven’s 2003 win over Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson’s 2011 win over Clint Bowyer at Talladega that featured tandem drafting.

The former is often heralded as one of the greatest NASCAR race finishes of all time and Larson said it’s an honor join that discussion along with Buescher.

“I respect the heck out of his talent. I think if I would have finished – say he won and I finished second, I’m still happy,” Larson said. “But say me and Denny had come down to the finish like that and he edges me out by a thousandth, I’d have been pissed off just because I’ve finished second to him so many times.

“I would hate to (hear), ‘Oh, the Larson-Hamlin finish,’ or ‘Hamlin beat him again.’ That would suck. To share it with Buescher if roles were reversed, I think would be cool.”

Personally, Larson still believes the Craven-Busch finish was “way cooler.”

“That was like a battle the lasted however many laps and came down to a photo finish,” he said. “This was still cool, and hopefully it can hang on for a long time. I didn’t think that was as close as that.”

Larson’s Cup win on Sunday is his second of the 2024 season for he and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team and came on he heels of a runner-up finish the weekend before at Dover.

This year – which is intermixed with his typical array of sprint car races – has already been a successful one for Larson and his biggest venture – running in this year’s Indianapolis 500 – has yet to kick into gear.

Looking ahead to a busy Month of May

Larson, 31, will attempt to become the fifth driver in history to complete “The Double” and run 1,100 miles in one day, starting with the Indianapolis 500 in an Indy car and then flying to…