Kyle Larson was practically in a league of his own on Sunday afternoon at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Leading 181 of the 267 laps in the Pennzoil 400, the Hendrick Motorsports driver swept all three stages en route to his first NASCAR Cup Series triumph of the season. It was also Larson’s third victory at the 1.5-mile oval since 2021.
All three of his wins at Las Vegas have also come with crew chief Cliff Daniels on top of the pit box.
While Larson has enjoyed success at Las Vegas, Daniels points to the style of track as the reason for his success.
“I would argue he is so good at tracks with a lot of character,” Daniels began. “That’s a testament to the different types of cars that he drives all the time. He can adapt to so many different things.
“We are going to see him do that again here in about three months, which is going to be a lot of fun to watch.”
Larson’s uncanny ability to adapt will certainly come in handy in May when he begins to churn laps throughout the month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway aboard an Indy car in preparation for the Indianapolis 500.
Daniels said that even when the No. 5 Chevrolet is not the best car on the track, Larson’s talent lifts the HMS team.
“He’s so good at moving the different lanes and how the car reacts in those different situations,” Daniels said. “I would argue we haven’t had the outright best car every time that we’ve won. He’s done a really good job on restarts. We all know how important clean air is.
“Yeah, we’ve given him something that he can drive and do what he’s good at to go put it in position.”
With Larson in position in the closing laps, so too was 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick.
The driver of the No. 45 Toyota tracked down Larson and was within striking distance. However, air blocking and forcing Reddick to look elsewhere on the race track for an advantage became the winning move for Larson.
Larson acknowledged his line of vision was split between what was ahead and in the rearview mirror.
“I would say it’s got to be somewhat 50/50,” Larson began. “Once you’re in the corner — (turns) three and four you’re more out the windshield because it’s a more line sensitive corner especially as you’re trying to run the bottom.
“But even before you exit turn four you’re already looking in your mirror and trying to judge the run that’s coming behind you.
“And then as you turn off into (turn) one you kind of have — at least for me, I don’t know about other people — you’re looking where you’re going, (where the) mirror is, you can kind of out of your peripheral see his angle, and then like once I get loaded, then I can look again and add wheel if I need to block or release wheel to let it wash up or whatever,” Larson continued.
“Then yeah, same thing down the backstretch.”
Larson enjoyed the challenge but felt he could’ve been better.
“It’s fun when you do it right. It’s tough,” Larson admitted. “I almost kind of messed up a couple times. There’s some guys that are really good at mirror driving.
“I felt like I did an OK job of it there at the end.”