{"id":24168,"date":"2019-03-15T21:12:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=24168"},"modified":"2019-03-15T21:18:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:18:28","slug":"kyle-larson-has-extra-motivation-to-win-for-his-fellow-californians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/15\/kyle-larson-has-extra-motivation-to-win-for-his-fellow-californians\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Larson has extra motivation to win for his fellow Californians"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It\u2019s not as if Kyle Larson<\/strong><\/a> needs any extra motivation.<\/p>\n

One of NASCAR\u2019s most popular recent breakout stars, Larson has enjoyed a good six-year run in the big leagues. Approaching the fifth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> race of the 2019 season, he\u2019d like to regain form and regain his footing as a perennial can\u2019t-miss player in the championship.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kyle Larson, driver of the #42 Credit One Bank Chevrolet, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway on March 15, 2019 in Fontana, California. (Photo by Robert Laberge\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

What better place to restore winning ways than his home state\u2019s Auto Club Speedway \u2013 about a seven-hour drive south from the small Elk Grove community where he grew up and began his career. Two years ago he won the Auto Club 400 (Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) from the pole position \u2013 one of the most popular victories in the track\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d love to repeat that this weekend to get back in the win column for the first time in two seasons and regain that title form. He figures there\u2019s no better place. He has two runner-up finishes (2014 and 2018) and a victory (2017) in five starts at California.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won here a couple years ago and ran second here last year, got my first Xfinity win here and I have a [Cup] pole,” Larson said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a good track for me, it\u2019s Southern California and I\u2019m from Northern California \u2013 about six hours away. I still have a lot of Central and Southern California sprint car fans that are here walking the garage and taking pictures and I sign a lot of autographs of sprint cars I ran in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cool to have support anywhere you go, but your home state is nice. I guess it gives me a little bit of extra motivation maybe to go out there and win for all the California people out there.”<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_AutoClub_Larson_031519.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

After earning Rookie of the Year honors in 2014 with 17 top-10 runs in 36 races. He claimed his first Monster Energy Series trophy two years later (at Michigan) and put an exclamation point on the showing with a four-win 2017 season, when he swept both Michigan races and had a win from the pole position at this week\u2019s Auto Club Speedway venue.<\/p>\n

He was championship bound \u2013 a title favorite – in 2017 only to have four consecutive DNFs in the 10-race playoff portion of the schedule from Kansas to Phoenix.<\/p>\n

Last year was a challenge for Larson\u2019s No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet team. He had a healthy total of top-fives (12) and top-10s (19) but winless for the first time in three years and ended up ninth in the Playoff run.<\/p>\n

This season Larson has stealthily been a big time player. He\u2019s been ranked seventh or better all year in the championship with top-10s in the Daytona 500 (seventh) and last week at Phoenix (sixth). In fact, for the first time in team history Larson and his new teammate Kurt Busch (ninth) have both been ranked among the top-10 in the standings all season long.<\/p>\n

Larson led a race high 142 laps at Atlanta \u2013 and won the first Stage – only to finish 12th after receiving a heart-breaking pit road speeding penalty late in the race.<\/p>\n

Only championship leader Kyle Busch (227) and Ryan Blaney (148) have led more laps than Larson\u2019s 142 this season.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been a legitimate contender in every race and wonders what the outcome might be if not for little missteps along the way. The encouraging thing is how far up in the standings he is \u2013 even with the extra work of overcoming miscues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t had the greatest last three weeks when it comes to execution,” Larson said. \u201cWe just try to learn from it, talk about it and figure out how not to make it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I had only one speeding penalty all last year then I sped at Atlanta (three weeks ago).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis series is so tough you have to be perfect all weekend long,” he continued. \u201cFrom Friday to Sunday you can\u2019t make any mistakes. You\u2019ve got to make all the right decisions just to maximize your potential of winning. Putting us back and starting 31st last week hurt us. We could have a lot more points right now and be top-three or four in points, but didn\u2019t do a great job. Just have to clean that stuff up. And I\u2019m confident our team can do that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It\u2019s not as if Kyle Larson needs any extra motivation. One of NASCAR\u2019s most popular recent breakout stars, Larson has enjoyed a good six-year run in the big leagues. Approaching the fifth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the 2019 season, he\u2019d like to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[401,399,225,16],"class_list":["post-24168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-auto-club-400","tag-auto-club-speedway","tag-kyle-larson","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_AutoClub_LarsonOnTrack_031519.jpg?fit=3578%2C2381","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6hO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24205,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24168\/revisions\/24205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}