Kyle Larson didn't get a chance to compete in last year's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, having made the decision to wait out an Indy 500 rain delay at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. By the time he got to Charlotte, the race had already been stopped due to rain, and it did not resume.
Larson became the first driver since Davy Jones in 1995 to embark upon a Memorial Day Double attempt and only actually compete in one race; Jones failed to qualify for the Coca-Cola 600.
After three short rain delays today, Larson's race unfortunately ended early at Indy. After 91 laps around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Speedway, Indiana oval, a curious downshift on a restart resulted in him spinning into the turn two wall in a crash that also collected two others.
The bright side for Larson was that it totally ended any potential timing conflicts for the Coca-Cola 600. He got to the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Concord, North Carolina oval with more than enough time to spare, and by taking the green flag, he finally made the history he had planned on making last year.
Larson is officially the fifth driver to run both the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, and he is the first since Kurt Busch to do so in 2014.
John Andretti did it in 1994, Robby Gordon did it in 1997, 1999, and then each year from 2002 to 2004, and Tony Stewart did it in 1999 and 2001.
Larson has led the early stages of Sunday night's 400-lap race, and the pressure of running all 1,100 miles is obviously no more, given his crash before the Indy 500's halfway point. He is still trying to do what nobody else has done and win one of the two races of his attempt.
Stewart's third place finish in 2001 is the best ever Coca-Cola 600 finish for a driver attempting the Memorial Day Double.
Live coverage of the Coca-Cola 600 is being shown live from Charlotte Motor Speedway on Amazon Prime Video.