NASCAR: Kyle Larson rises above effort to ‘cancel’ him

Kyle Larson, who has already signed with Hendrick Motorsports through 2023, is set to compete for his first career NASCAR Cup Series championship.

Last summer, there was doubt about whether Kyle Larson would ever have the chance to compete in another NASCAR Cup Series race, and for good reason.

As the world was shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Cup Series ended up on an unexpected 10-week hiatus from March to mid-May. During that hiatus, many drivers competed in various virtual racing events on iRacing.

On Easter Sunday, April 12, Larson was among those competing in a virtual event at Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. Multiple drivers were live streaming the event on Twitch, so when Larson uttered the N-word in attempt to get the attention of his spotter, thousands heard him.

That number multiplied quickly, given the impact of social media.

This led to both NASCAR and Chip Ganassi Racing issuing the then 28-year-old Elk Grove, California native an indefinite suspension, prohibiting him from returning to the sport until he completed sensitivity training.

But the bleeding didn’t stop there.

Multiple sponsors cut ties with Larson and forced Chip Ganassi’s hand into firing him, which he did just two days later.

It was clear from the start that this was a business decision: Larson was not fired for using the word itself. Sure, that’s obviously what led to the firing, but he wasn’t fired until it had business implications — until keeping him in the #42 Chevrolet would’ve cost his team owner millions of dollars.

There’s a reason why he wasn’t fired until two days after the fact, after all of his partners announced that they would no longer associate with him. Ganassi even confirmed this straight-up.

To put it into perspective, the use of a racial slur got Jeremy Clements suspended from the Xfinity Series for two races in 2013. He completed sensitivity training and returned, ending what was also classified as an indefinite suspension. At the time, some even argued that the penalty was too harsh.

But this was 2020 we were talking about this time around.

So when Larson was down, nobody wanted to stop kicking. This was the end for him. In the age of social media, where the court of public opinion reigns supreme, any opportunity to promote a sense of moral superiority, especially over a well-known athlete, is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

People absolutely love to thrive on others’ mistakes, and this was a big one — even bigger than it would have ordinarily been, considering the racially charged times in which we were living.

One fan’s response:

“Rot in silence piece of s***. You’re lucky I’m not there to whoop your a**!!”

That was one of the nicer ones.

Then there was MLB pitcher Marcus Stroman — who had interestingly defended the use of the same exact raciar slur!! (*only when that route was deemed morally superior, of course*) — calling for Larson to be banned from NASCAR for life and saying that he would love to beat him up.

Major news networks that ordinarily don’t give a rat’s rear end about NASCAR on (and, quite frankly, can’t tell a stock car from an open-wheel car) were buzzing about Larson’s use of the N-word, with several individuals going on prominent talk shows and sharing similar thoughts about the turn his career ought to take.

Some big-name hosts even specifically stated that he needed to be “canceled”.

His apology didn’t matter. He didn’t deserve a second chance. He was canceled, never to be seen again, rotting in silence. At this point, what sponsor was going to sign him?

None — a beautiful thing for those morally superior individuals who never made a mistake in their lives and could, from behind their screens, tell you what a terrible human being Larson was for making his.

I remember the first thing I heard anything about the incident itself came in the form of a tweet: “Where were you the night Kyle Larson got canceled?”

And indeed, things looked to be going in that direction.

Larson wasn’t going to be allowed back in NASCAR. Nobody wanted to associate with him as one of his sponsors, and everybody knows that in racing, if you don’t have sponsorship, talent is useless.

No sponsor wanted to face the level of backlash, potentially even boycotts, from fans that would have ensued. Even Chevrolet indefinitely cut ties with him.

However, here we are in 2021. Larson drives for a new team — a Chevrolet team, at that — in Hendrick Motorsports, and he leads the Cup Series with nine wins, more than twice his previous career-high, more than twice the total of any other driver, and tied for the most for any driver since 2007, with one race to go.

He has been the betting favorite to win the championship since early June, and he is listed by WynnBET as the +145 favorite to win the title in this afternoon’s Championship 4 race at Phoenix Raceway.

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So how the heck did we get here?

Many unfortunately still believe that his ride at Hendrick Motorsports only came about solely because of his mistake — that his mistake, in turn, netted him the best opportunity of his career.

The reality of it is, Rick Hendrick wanted to sign him for 2021 as Jimmie Johnson’s replacement well before the racial incident.

Larson, who is technically still on probation through 2023, was slated to become a free agent at the end of the 2020 season anyway, so he was going to have the option to sign with Hendrick’s team for 2021 to begin with.

Without the racial incident, we could very well be staring at the exact same situation we are now in as far as the on-track product is concerned heading into this weekend.

By no means was he “rewarded” for his mistake.

There was absolutely no funny business going on here that led Hendrick to sign him. Another prominent team even admitted that they wanted to sign him but couldn’t get their partners to sign off on it.

Too bad for them, isn’t it?

He earned his second chance, a second chance that seemingly nobody wanted to give him when it was oh-so-easy to attack him as a racist loser who needed to be banished from the sport and from the world and never heard from again.

And there are many people — other than Larson, both inside and outside of the NASCAR world — who are far better off because he was given that second chance.

Larson has grown immensely as an individual, and his work to help others has made him the epitome of why second chances are given.

The tremendous work that Larson did did behind the scenes — and continues to do behind the scenes — justifies the fact that he was given a chance to return to the Cup Series, and with one of the sport’s premier teams.

It would have been much easier to write him off for good when he said what he said. That’s what many in the court of public opinion were hoping for in their profanity-laced tweets and other nasty social media posts, and that’s exactly what has happened to countless other individuals, companies, etc., especially in recent years.

It easily could have happened to Larson in this sponsor-driven world of NASCAR.

But Larson was able to overcome that.

While he missed the final 32 races of the 36-race 2020 season, he hasn’t skipped a beat performance-wise.

He is performing at the highest level of his career, and thanks to what he has accomplished not only on the track but off the track, he has already been rewarded with a contract extension to remain with Hendrick Motorsports through at least the 2023 season.

To make a good story even better, he is set to return with Hendrick Automotive Group’s HendrickCars.com as the majority primary sponsor of his #5 Chevrolet.

Why does this make this whole situation even more special? Entering the 2021 season, it was a struggle for Larson to find sponsors because of the mistake he made, so the Rick Hendrick-associated HendrickCars.com stepped up as his majority primary sponsor.

Now, Larson’s car is their car for good. They are set to sponsor Larson in all of his non-NASCAR racing events as well — and there are quite a few, given how active he is at local dirt tracks when he’s not competing behind the wheel of his #5 Chevrolet.

So primary sponsorship for Larson is now sold out for the next two-plus seasons.

Who saw that coming last April?

It’s easy to knee-jerk react to somebody else’s mistake, big or small. There’s no doubt that Larson made a mistake, and he needed to learn a lesson — a big one.

But he did that, and he did that because unlike so many others, he had the opportunity for a second chance.

So thankfully, the knee-jerk reaction wasn’t worse than what it was, and he was able to avoid being canceled like so many before him.

While it can feel good for some to knock somebody who’s already down after they’ve made a mistake, the long-term effects of Larson being given a second chance have proven to be well worth the wait.

Larson is set to square off against teammate and reigning champion Chase Elliott as well as Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. in the championship decider at Phoenix Raceway this afternoon. Tune in to NBC at 3:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the Championship 4 race. Start your free trial of FuboTV today so you don’t miss any of the action!