Did the Indy 500 cost Kyle Larson another NASCAR championship?

If not for rain at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Memorial Day Sunday, Kyle Larson presumably would have gotten the opportunity to start the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Instead, he opted to stay at Indy, run the Indy 500, and fly down to Charlotte after the race had already started. Though he was no longer eligible to score points in it, he had planned on taking over from his own replacement driver, Justin Allgaier, behind the wheel of the No. 5 Chevrolet.

But rain at Charlotte had halted that race as well, and it was unable to be restarted. Larson was granted a playoff waiver, but he scored no points in NASCAR's longest race of the year.

With 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick ultimately beating him to the regular season championship by a single point, that decision proved crucial. Had he simply started the Coca-Cola 600, he would have guaranteed himself at least one point. He owned the tiebreaker over Reddick due to having more race wins (four to two).

The regular season champion is awarded 15 extra playoff points. The runner-up scores 10.

Larson ultimately failed to advance to the Championship 4 from the round of 8 by seven points, meaning that, had he skipped the Indy 500 for the Coca-Cola 600, he would have fallen two points shy of advancing.

But it may or may not really be that simple.

Charlotte Motor Speedway has been one of Larson's best tracks since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2021. The Coca-Cola 600 also has four stages, not just three, meaning that an added playoff point is on the table, in addition to the seven playoff points (one for each stage win, five for the race win) that are on offer each weekend.

Larson swept the stages and won the race in 2021, and he bounced back from an early incident to lead laps late in 2022. An accident knocked him out of the race in 2023 as well.

Could Larson have collected at least two extra playoff points in that race, had he run it?

There's no way of knowing, but it's all he would have needed. And given the fact that he led all drivers in laps led, stage wins, and, to this day, has twice as many race wins as the next highest winner this year, it would have been hard to bet against him.

He would have owned the tiebreaker over teammate William Byron in the round of 8, as his top finish of third place in the semifinal round at Martinsville Speedway was a spot higher than Byron's fourth place effort at Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier in the round.

Instead, the 2021 champion was left on the outside looking in for the second time in three years, and Byron took the fourth and final Championship 4 spot. The driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet is set to join Reddick and Team Penske's Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano in the battle for the 2024 championship at Phoenix Raceway this coming Sunday afternoon.

Blaney is the reigning series champion. Tune in to NBC at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 10 for the live broadcast of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race from Phoenix Raceway. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!