KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Kyle Larson is one of the busiest racers in motorsports, but he gets a little busier this week.
He begins his second Indianapolis 500 month on Tuesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after competing in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Superspeedway and Monday’s High Limit Racing sprint car race at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway.
But being busy is nothing new for Larson, who has won two Cup Series races, two Xfinity Series races, one Craftsman Truck Series race, three World of Outlaws features, a High Limit feature and the Chili Bowl Nationals
Preparation is one of his keys to success.
“It’s been a bit busy for me here throughout this season just with a lot of the racing I’ve done and all that,” Larson said on Saturday. “And everybody preps a little differently. I feel like with our 5 team, we do a good job with our prep and being pretty into our procedure and how we do things.
“When I run a one-off Xfinity race, I don’t look at any data necessarily, but you try to watch some film,” he noted. “And usually the tracks I’m going to are tracks I’m familiar with and have a good understanding of what it takes, feel-wise, in the car or lines and stuff. So it doesn’t make the studying super in-depth.
“And then yeah, with Indy, I haven’t done a whole lot, but there’s not really much you can do studying-wise,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver added. “You can watch film, which I will, and all that. But yeah, I think for Indy, you have a lot of time, really. So I think once you get in the car and kind of get an understanding of your balance of your car, then you can really kind of pick apart studying; where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, how to make all that better and be better prepared for the race.”
But before Larson heads to Indianapolis on Sunday night, he’ll be one of the favorites to win Sunday at Kansas, where he won last May’s race in the closest finish in NASCAR history (0.001 seconds).
Larson has led 1,395 laps on 1.5-mile tracks in the Next Gen car.
“I think everything factors in… car, team, driver. I’ve always excelled at mile-and-a-halves. It kind of really feels similar to winged sprint car racing to me,” Larson explained. “And then, yeah, I mean, when the Next Gen car, you can kind of — when you’re in the lead, it’s hard to pass somebody, especially when they’re doing a good job at defending.
“So I feel like I’ve led enough laps, I’ve gotten better at defending. All those laps I’ve led, I’ve not been the best car at every single lap, but I’ve done a good job of blocking or just making things difficult on guys behind me.”
