By David Morgan, Associate Editor
SPEEDWAY, Ind. – A decision to stay in Indianapolis for his debut in the Indianapolis 500 instead of heading to Charlotte for his NASCAR Cup Series duties seemed to be paying off for Kyle Larson – until it wasn’t.
After a four-hour rain delay pushed the Indy 500 to a late afternoon start, Larson and his team made the decision to stay in Indianapolis to give Larson a chance to compete at Indianapolis.
Earning his worth as a part of the four-car Arrow McLaren stable of Chevrolets in Sunday’s 108th running of the Indy 500, Larson was hanging tough in the top-10 for the first 132 laps, learning the intricacies of NTT IndyCar Series racing as he went, until everything unraveled on a green flag pit stop.
Larson came into the pits too hot, locking up the front tires on his HendrickCars.com sponsored machine, exceeding the pit road speed limit and drawing a pass-through penalty from series officials as a result.
After serving his penalty, Larson dropped off the lead lap to 21st place.
Following a crash by Will Power that brought out the caution, Larson was able to take the wave around to get his lap back with 46 laps remaining.
Larson would cycle to the lead on pit strategy, putting himself at the top of the leaderboard for four laps before having to peel off onto pit road for his final stop.
In the final rundown, he would be classified with an 18th place finish, with the entirety of his experience only amplifying his want to return to Indianapolis again and make another run at the Double.
“I would definitely love to be back next year,” said Larson. “I feel like I learned a lot throughout the race. I made a couple of mistakes early there with the restart. I’m not sure what I did wrong there, but I somehow got myself into third. I feel like I did a really good job on the restarts and was able to learn a lot.
“Definitely feel good about knowing what I would need different for the balance coming back to help runs and stuff. And then obviously I smoked a left front or something into the green flag stop and killed our opportunity.
“Proud to finish, but pretty upset at myself. If I could have just executed a better race, you never know what could happen. Bummed at myself, but huge thank you to Arrow McLaren, Hendrick Motorsports, Hendrick Automotive Group, Rick Hendrick, Chevrolet, Valvoline – everybody that’s a part of this.
“We’ll go hop in the jet and see if I…
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