Kyle Larson is Simply the Best Thing Going in NASCAR Right Now

• All-time greats Richard Petty won 200 races, Jimmie Johnson has won 83 (that’s not likely to change), and Dale Earnhardt won 76.

• Kyle Larson already has 21 career victories, 15 of them since returning to NASCAR in 2021.

• That’s more than twice as many as Chase Elliott (7), Joey Logano and William Byron (6), and Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Kyle Busch (5) have won in each of their last 85 starts.

It’s probably too soon to say Kyle Larson will someday join Richard Petty, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt on the Mount Rushmore of NASCAR drivers. After all, the current Final Four winner-take-all playoff format means one hiccup at Phoenix could dash a team’s championship hopes, no matter how worthy it had been.

So, while winning seven titles seems a stretch, it’s not too soon to say Larson is the best thing in NASCAR right now, an unofficial title he might hold all year.

Consider that in a recent eight-day stretch the 30-year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver won an Xfinity race at Darlington, a Craftsman Truck race at North Wilkesboro, and the Cup All-Star race at North Wilkesboro. Maybe that doesn’t compare to Kyle Busch’s three-series weekend sweep at Bristol in 2010 and 2017, but it’s still pretty impressive in its own way.

Larson’s resume would look even better if not for two late-race incidents that almost certainly cost him victories early this month.

On May 7, second-running Denny Hamlin aggressively knocked Larson aside as Larson led on the last lap in Kansas. (Larson managed to finish second). A week later, at Darlington, the day after winning the Xfinity race, Larson had a comfortable lead until a late caution bunched field. When he and Ross Chastain crashed on the restart, what seemed a certain victory turned into a 20th-place finish.

But back to that image of Larson on the Mount Rushmore of drivers:

Petty won 200 races, Johnson has won 83 (that’s not likely to change), and Earnhardt won 76 before dying at the end of the 2001 Daytona 500. Larson already has 21 career victories, 15 of them since returning to NASCAR in 2021. That’s more than twice as many as Chase Elliott (7), Joey Logano and William Byron (6), and Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Kyle Busch (5) in their last 85 starts.

Petty, Johnson, and Earnhardt each won seven Cups. Larson has won one, in 2021, his first year with owner Rick Hendrick and crew chief Cliff Daniels. Given the consistent strength of the Daniels/Larson pairing, though, that number figures to grow. As much as anybody on the tour, that team is a pre-race favorite almost every weekend.

Larson’s recent victory at North Wilkesboro was his third in seven All-Star starts, each at a different venue. He won in 2019 at Charlotte for owner Chip Ganassi, in 2021 at Texas for Hendrick, and again last weekend for Hendrick. He’s the fourth driver with at least three such victories, trailing only four-time winner Johnson and tied with fellow three-timers Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon. Those drivers won theirs at Charlotte, site of 35 of the first 36 All-Star races.