Kyle Larson has detailed his first stage wreck at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, which cascaded in a DNF for him and Chase Briscoe. The Hendrick Motorsports driver was steering through the Turn 2 exit when he got loose and his #5 Chevy rammed hard into the outside wall.
Larson posted the sixth fastest speed during the qualifying and started his Quaker State 400 race with the frontrunners. The #5 Chevy driver was the quickest qualifier among his teammates. William Byron stood ninth while Alex Bowman came 11th. Chase Elliott was the slowest HMS driver in 16th place.
The 2021 Cup Series champion was running in third place when he lost control of his Chevy through Turns 1 and 2. Larson tried to stay put but an overcorrecting move careened his car into the wall. The crash was so severe that the HMS driver's Camaro's front was damaged beyond repair.
The Californian recalled his Lap 56 incident and cited multiple factors like a stiff NextGen car and stiffer tires that affected his response to getting loose. He said (via Dustin Long on X).
"I just got loose. You know, the cars, when you get like off-set you know halfway of the guy in front of you, you lose a lot of downforce. I was just kind of living in that pocket and I felt fine and then it just started stepping out. I think the tires were stiffer at speedways, the car setup was stiff and made reactions harder. You saw Chris Buescher do pretty much the same thing as me. I was going to crash, I was going to either hit the driver side or nose it in. Unfortunately, nosed in," Larson said.
Chase Briscoe got collected in Kyle Larson's chaos. Though he was at a distance that he could've escaped the unwanted tangle, the #14 Ford failed to maneuver "quick enough" and spiraled into the wreck.
Kenny Wallace comments on Kyle Larson's crash and draws similarities between Atlanta Motor Speedway, Daytona, and Talladega
Kenny Wallace opined on Kyle Larson's crash and highlighted that Atlanta's quad-oval produces similar racing to the superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega.
AMS broke ground in 1960 and has undergone multiple reconfigurations jobs. After the first work in 1997, the 1.54-mile track got the quad-oval shape. However, the latest job in 2022 made the Speedway resemble the Daytona and Talladega Superspeedways.
Atlanta now has banking of 28 degrees and a track width of 40 feet. Daytona boasts 31 degrees of elevation and is 40 feet wide. Talladega Superspeedway is 48 feet wide and has 33 degrees of banking. Thus, it's evident that racing on AMS is similar to superspeedway racing.
Kenny Wallace outlined that Kyle Larson crashed despite nobody being "on his a**" and expressed one can get "loose" on the said speedways.
"Atlanta Motor Speedway is the hot ticket now. I mean, look at those finishes, look at the racing, it's kind of wild because it's in between the Daytona and Talladega. But as we witnessed, you got to handle, you have to handle. Kyle Larson, the in-car video, Jeff Burton, everybody watched him. He got a little loose, by himself, nobody was on his a**," Wallace said (0:51).
"He got a little loose, and you run it so fast, you got so much G-force that he got loose in the car and Kyle Larson went in the wall...my point is, the track is in between the Daytona and Talladega. You can get loose," he added.
Placed tenth, Kyle Larson is the lowest-ranked HMS driver in the playoff standings.