NASCAR: Kyle Larson’s latest broken record is just ridiculous
By Asher Fair
Kyle Larson’s historic 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season continued on Sunday at Kansas Speedway with yet another trip to victory lane.
For the second time in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson finds himself on a three-race winning streak.
After winning the round of 12 finale at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, the driver of the #5 Chevrolet has added wins in the round of 8 races at Texas Motor Speedway at Kansas Speedway. His win at Texas Motor Speedway locked him into the Championship 4 for the first time in his career.
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This marks the first time that a driver has won three races in a row twice in the same season since seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt pulled it off en route to his third championship in 1987.
A fourth straight win this Sunday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway would give Larson 10 wins this year, the most since seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, a career Hendrick Motorsports driver, won 10 times en route to his second championship in 2007.
In a legendary 19-year career during which he won 83 races, this was Johnson’s only double-digit win campaign. Larson has a chance to do it in year one as a Hendrick Motorsports driver.
A fourth straight win would also make Larson the first driver to win four races in a row since Johnson did so late in 2007 to secure that title.
The best part? The history doesn’t stop there. Those statistics alone are almost enough to put Larson in the way-too-early discussion for greatest driver of all-time, considering the fact that he is only in his first year at Hendrick Motorsports and is competing this year after, for all intents and purposes, missing the 2020 season.
But his latest broken record is just ridiculous.
NASCAR moved to a 36-race Cup Series schedule in 2001, and Jeff Gordon won his fourth and final championship after winning six races and leading 2,320 laps that year. That 2,320 laps led figure stood as the all-time record for the 36-race era until this past Sunday when the 2021 season’s 34th race was contested.
Larson led 130 laps, the fifth time in the last eight races and the 10th time in the 2021 season he has led triple-digit laps, around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Kansas City, Kansas on his way to winning the 267-lap race.
His 53rd lap led in this event tied Gordon’s record, and his 54th broke it, as he has now led 2,397 laps (out of 8,387 possible and 8,187 completed laps) so far this season.
Johnson’s highest career single-season laps led total was 2,238 in 2009. He won his fourth championship that year.
Gordon did lead 2,610 laps in a 31-race 1995 season during which he won his first title, so we’ll avoid completely selling him short by throwing that in there. He also won 13 races in a 33-race championship-winning 1998 season, so again, Larson isn’t quite there yet.
But to say anything less than he is well on his way would be selling Larson short.
Just take a look at some of the other comparisons to these two Hendrick — and NASCAR — greats.
In the 36-race era, Gordon competed for 15 seasons (2001 to 2015) and won no more than six races in a single season. In his first three seasons at Hendrick Motorsports (1993 to 1995), he won nine times, equal to Larson’s year one total. It took Gordon two seasons of the 36-race era to win nine times.
It took Johnson, who only ever competed during the 36-race era, until his third season (2004) at Hendrick Motorsports to reach nine wins.
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Of course, Larson has an advantage in that he isn’t a rookie like these two were when they got to Rick Hendrick’s team, so he isn’t starting from scratch. But at just 29 years old, he has everything he needs to continue shattering records.