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The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson competed in his first Xfinity Series race since 2018. With a P2 finish, he put on an impressive show in Saturday’s Henry 180 at Road America, winning the first two stages and leading a race-high 31 of 48 laps.
Larson was close to victory when Cole Custer lost his brakes and crashed while running P3. The caution threw the race into overtime and in the end, Larson lost the race to 19-year-old Ty Gibbs by 0.858 seconds.
Despite losing to Gibbs on the final lap, Larson praised him for the kind of driver he was.
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Speaking to the media in a post-race interview, the Hendrick Motorsports driver said that Gibbs drives really well on road courses and expressed hope to race him one day on an oval track.
Larson said:
“He’s obviously really good. Watching, I feel like you can tell a good race-car driver by from the road courses and he’s always ran really well on the road courses since he started, so I knew he was gonna be really good. I hope to get to race him on an oval.”
He continued by saying:
“(Gibbs) did a good job of getting me to have to kind of change my angles up there those first couple of corners. Then, I overshot (Turn) 3 just a little bit and wasn’t able to get the wheel turned like I needed, and yeah, he got by.”
“I wasn’t thinking at all about his championship while I was racing”- Kyle Larson
Kyle Larson admitted that he was focused on his race and had no clue while racing that it was not the Cup Series. He went on to say that he didn’t feel it would be morally right to push Ty Gibbs as he believed in winning the race fair and square.
Larson said:
“I wasn’t thinking at all about his championship while I was racing. You know, he passed me clean, so I didn’t feel like it would have been right for me to go and move him out of the way. When he protected in (Turn) 12, I could have easily just shoved him through there and won the race. But I didn’t think that’d be the fair way to win.”
Kyle Larson will be looking forward to be going once again against Gibbs when he returns to the Xfinity Series with JR Motorsports on August 20th at Watkins Glen and on September 3rd at Darlington Raceway.
