Larson's Legend Gets a Hollywood Shine

By Ron Lemasters Jr.

Remeber when Jeff Gordon burst upon the NASCAR scene? Tony Stewart?

There were superlatives thrown around then that forecast the duo's impact on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and they were right. Seven series championships and nearly 140 career victories have proven that fact beyond all doubt.

Larson hasn't won a race yet, let alone a series title--largely because he's five races into his first season as a regular--but already, there is talk that he could rival the open-wheel stars of yesteryear.

After his performance at Auto Club Speedway this past weekend, it's clear that the talk is spot-on.

All Larson did was win the NASCAR Nationwide Series event on Saturday, topping Kyle Busch in a run to the checkered and nearly pull it off again on Sunday, losing out to Busch over the final three-quarters of a lap to finish second in the Auto Club 400.

"Yeah, it's been a really good weekend," the native Californian quipped after Sunday's race. "I guess you couldn't ask for more, but was surprised to get up there late in the race."

Larson made veteran moves on the final restart, coming from ninth at the green to second by the time they got to the backstretch one lap later.

That included a classic open-wheel slide job on Kurt Busch, no less.

"We were probably a 12th-place car for most of the day," Larson said. "We struggled with our Target Chevy being too loose on exit but still too tight in the center.  We tightened the exit up and got way too tight in the center.  My guys worked really hard all day long to find that right balance, and right there on the last pit stop we were able to make good enough adjustments where we could go hard for a couple laps."

Larson was thinking he had the catbird's seat for the green-white-checkered, lining up on the outside line for the two-lap dash. But Landon Cassill stayed out as the leader, and Larson was bumped back to ninth.

"I was thinking I was going to line up eighth but then the 40 [Cassill] stayed out and I had to line up on the bottom and I was disappointed because the bottom had been getting jammed up once we got to Turn 1, and I was surprised, I just watched it on TV and it was pretty wild, we were four wide there into 1.  

"Came out in fourth there, I think, and then got to second off Turn 2 the next lap and thought I might have a shot at Kyle depending on where he'd go into Turn 3, but he was good enough to keep it on the bottom and stay ahead of me.  But we'll take a second.  Long race and definitely didn't expect to run second, so I'll take it and head back to North Carolina with a smile on my face."

Another guy that has a smile on his face is team owner Chip Ganassi, who let Juan Pablo Montoya go back to open-wheel to hire Larson for the flagship No. 42 Target Chevy. The run he put together on the final restart was veteran-like, to be sure.

"I had to move around a little bit," Larson recounted. "I spun my tires just a little bit, and Jamie [McMurray, his teammate] was able to get a run to my inside, so I was stuck in the middle.  I think I got to Jeff's [Gordon] outside.  Luckily I didn't get tight behind anybody or loose or anything like that. It was pretty hectic for me, but really nothing too scary for me, either."

He passed Gordon and Stewart in the rush to Turn 2 on the final lap, which is sort of fitting, if you think about it.

One thing about being a younger driver today is, you don't get the radical setups that some of the veteran drivers had on Sunday, and due to the increased camber everyone was running, that was a good thing.

"We had a little bit of an [tire] issue in practice or happy hour Saturday, and then we worked on that and got it better, and we actually didn't have any tire issues the whole race.  Every pit stop my crew chief [Chris "Shine" Heroy] would tell me my tires were great.  There was just a small concern that last run we had when people really started blowing tires, but I wasn't too concerned."

It's the rest of the field that ought to be concerned at how fast Larson has picked up the pace in NASCAR's top division.