INDIANAPOLIS — On the heels of his third Knoxville Nationals victory, his first Brickyard 400 win and an eye-popping rookie run in the Indianapolis 500, people are talking about Kyle Larson. Still.
Larson remains the biggest thing in Motorsports America for a very simple reason: He is a race driver who is — hang onto your hat — allowed to be a race driver. Imagine that?
His NASCAR employer, Rick Hendrick, lets him moonlight in sprint cars because he figures a restless Kyle Larson is better than a subservient Somebody Else.
Zak Brown, who runs McLaren and hired Larson for the Indy 500, knew the deal was fraught with challenges and made it anyway. And Larson’s sprint car owner, Paul Silva, is OK with the fact that he’ll get Larson only when his NASCAR schedule permits. And why not? Silva knows that every time his car pushes off, this guy in the seat is about to wring every last ounce of speed out of it.
Larson showing up at a dirt bullring in Nebraska or Oklahoma is a big deal, because this sort of thing rarely happens anymore. But there was a time when it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, when the best drivers in the country were free to roam, free to climb into any car that suited them.
The 1960s and ’70s were freewheeling years for any driver with talent and ambition. God, what fun it must have been.
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