How Once-Exiled NASCAR Star Kyle Larson Found New Life at Hendrick Motorsports

• In early 2020, after that season’s fourth race, team owner Chip Ganassi fired Kyle Larson for his well-documented use of a deplorable racial slur.

• “I had very little optimism that I’d ever get back,” the cinch future Hall of Famer recently said at Daytona International Speedway.

• I wanted him in the worst kind of way,” Hendrick said when asked about taking on a proven winner who came with baggage.

Rick Hendrick never hesitated when Kyle Larson became available in late 2020. Likewise, Jim Campbell of Chevrolet Racing was comfortable when the legendary owner wanted Larson to drive for his team.

And former NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon was all-in when Hendrick went after Larson. But few within the motorsports industry could have dared imagine what was about to happen.

“It’s worked out pretty well, hasn’t it?” Gordon recently said, a broad smile on his face.

In early 2020, after that season’s fourth race, team owner Chip Ganassi fired Larson for his well-documented use of a deplorable racial slur during an on-line racing event. NASCAR immediately suspended Larson from all series. Chevrolet quickly disassociated itself from Larson, as did many of his sponsors. At best, Larson’s future looked bleak.

Through it all, though, he never fretted much about maybe never running another NASCAR race.

“I had very little optimism that I’d ever get back,” the cinch future Hall of Famer recently said at Daytona International Speedway. “But I would have been fine with that; content if that was the outcome. I would have made a good living racing dirt for the rest of my life, so I wasn’t worried too much.

“But I did think that if I ever got back, I never expected it would be with Hendrick Motorsports. I was shocked when it happened. Shocked and grateful and thankful at how it turned out. It’s been great.”

After months of NASCAR-mandated sensitivity training and a series of public service outreaches, the sanctioning body reinstated him in the fall of 2020. Hendrick and Gordon were four-square with the decision to pursue Larson, as was Campbell and Chevrolet Racing.