It’s not too often you hear Kyle Larson go ballistic on the radio. But in Stage 3 of this past Sunday’s race at Iowa Speedway, Larson let loose.
“How much f*cking room do I have to leave people?” Larson said “… I’ve been trying to be a good teammate, a good competitor and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere for the last hour.”
Earlier in the race, Larson got into things with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott. Shortly after that, Larson got bumped around a lot on a restart. It cost him valuable track position as he was pushed way outside the groove into a turn. Larson went from about fifth to 12th before another caution flag slowed things down. He explained Thursday that his frustration wasn’t necessarily aimed at Elliott; a number of things had built up to that point.
“I honestly wasn’t even that frustrated with Chase at all. Just a number of things were building up over all those cautions we had, and then the 20 [Christopher Bell] got into us and my top blew off there a little bit. It was just a good way for me to vent, get some frustration out and try to focus,” Larson said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Unfortunately, I think the next restart or the one after that, we got some damage that pretty much ended our shot at having a good day.
“NASCAR racing is tough. These cars — you can get into people and sometimes it doesn’t cause damage and sometimes it does. I’ve been on the giving end plenty of times, so just didn’t go well for us at Iowa. But we’re looking forward to Watkins Glen and hopefully can do a good job there.”
Kyle Larson moving on after tough weekend at Iowa
About a third of the final 150 laps at Iowa were under caution. Larson found himself in the thick of it too often for his liking. He went from competing for a top 10 finish to leaving the track with a disappointing P28.
Larson’s radio blowup caught Kevin Harvick by surprise. Harvick said on his “Happy Hour” podcast that he doesn’t want to see that kind of stuff from Larson.
“I don’t like that for Kyle Larson,” Harvick said. “I want Kyle Larson to be doing slide jobs and not worrying about what kind of competitor he is. Think you always have to worry about what kind of teammate you are, but I think it’s better to worry about it after it’s already done and you worry about the consequences later. Because that is not productive in my mind for Kyle Larson to be thinking about stuff like that.”
