{"id":26869,"date":"2019-06-22T14:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T19:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=26869"},"modified":"2019-06-23T15:45:56","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T20:45:56","slug":"californias-kyle-larson-is-focused-on-winning-at-his-home-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/22\/californias-kyle-larson-is-focused-on-winning-at-his-home-track\/","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s Kyle Larson is focused on winning at his home track"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kyle Larson\u2019s<\/strong> success at the famed Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway is to some extent, a microcosm of his season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kyle Larson, driver of the #42 Credit One Bank Chevrolet, qualifies for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Toyota\/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on June 22, 2019 in Sonoma, California. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

He\u2019s won the pole position for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> race at the track for the past two years, but hasn\u2019t been there at the finish to take home the big trophy. Similarly, the popular young driver has been good on the season \u2013 he won the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series All-Star race last month – but he\u2019s still looking for his first points-paying victory.<\/p>\n

This could well be the track and the weekend that changes all that.<\/p>\n

The Sonoma Raceway road course is essentially a home race track for the Elk Grove, California native. He fondly recalls coming to races as a fan when he was a young boy, even dressing in his racing hero Jeff Gordon\u2019s kid-size fire suit.<\/p>\n

And the feel-good has continued as an adult. The day before his 2014 rookie series debut at the track, Larson won the pole and led every lap to claim the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West victory.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/MENCS_SR_Larson_062119.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

He\u2019d love to replicate the good vibes and past performance in Sunday\u2019s Toyota\/Save Mart 350 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). And judging by his work in Friday\u2019s opening two practice sessions, he\u2019s a good bet. Larson led final practice in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Qualifying for the race is set for Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t ever come here and set up to get a pole,” Larson told reporters Friday afternoon. “We come here to try and win the race and have the set-up capable of winning the race. So it just happens to work out where I\u2019ve been good for short-run kind of stuff here my whole career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like it\u2019s kind of the same thing again this weekend. So, I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ve tried all sorts of different stuff so maybe it\u2019s just my fault why I\u2019m only good at qualifying.”<\/p>\n

In an unusual twist of fate, the fact Larson has only five previous Monster Energy Series starts at Sonoma may well work into his favor this weekend. The Sonoma track will feature a new look for the first time since 1997. And the change in course \u2013 extending it from 1.99-miles to 2.52-miles and adding the famous carousel turn \u2013 has garnered plenty of headlines and strong opinions. No one entered this weekend has ever run this longer track version in a Cup race.<\/p>\n

It certainly didn\u2019t slow Larson down in the opening practice sessions. In fact, he even told reporters the new section of the course may well be his favorite part.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a few extra corners so it\u2019s not a big deal I guess to any of us out there,” Larson said. \u201cSo yeah, we ran a good lap in our mock run today in practice, so I feel like I have a good shot at another pole tomorrow {Saturday). I would like to be better in race trim, but if we can get another pole it would be pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larson is ranked 15th in the series driver standings \u2013 inside the top-16 cutoff to ultimately make the Playoffs \u2013 but with only an eight-point cushion over 17th place Ryan Newman. Larson is 14 points behind 14th place William Byron.<\/p>\n

This weekend may well be a turning point for Larson. His season\u2019s highs \u2013 such as earning his first All-Star Race victory \u2013 have been extraordinary, but his disappointments have been equally as resounding. Larson led a race best 143 laps at Atlanta, for example, but finished 12th.  And the perennial Playoff contender has as many DNFs as he does top-10s (four). His best effort of 2019 is third place at Dover in May. His last top 10 came a week after that – an eighth place run in Kansas.<\/p>\n

Larson has never started worse than fifth in five Sonoma races, but has never finished better than 12th (2016). He\u2019s hoping a new look for the track may translate into a new look for him after the race: sipping local wine in Victory Lane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess [it\u2019s] not too frustrating with how our cars are running because I feel like our cars have been pretty good,” Larson said when asked about his season. \u201cBut as far as just bad luck or mistakes and things like that, that\u2019s what\u2019s been frustrating. But having a decently fast race car helps relieve some of that frustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cKurt [Busch] has been running really good. I run pretty good most of the race and then kind of something seems to happen towards to the end. We\u2019ve just got to clean up some things still and hopefully we can make the Playoffs and be hitting on all eight cylinders at the right time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kyle Larson\u2019s success at the famed Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway is to some extent, a microcosm of his season. He\u2019s won the pole position for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at the track for the past two years, but hasn\u2019t been there at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":26863,"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":[225,16,455],"class_list":["post-26869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-kyle-larson","tag-nascar","tag-sonoma-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/362459.jpg?fit=3167%2C2108","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6Zn","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26869","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=26869"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26875,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26869\/revisions\/26875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}