Kyle Larson mesmerized his fans with a picture-perfect finish at Kansas Speedway yesterday. Beating RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher by an extraordinarily slim margin of 0.001 seconds, Larson extracted a roar of cheers from the fan stands. However, the unique manner in which Larson won, getting dangerously close to a disaster, equally enthralled fans.

Kyle Larson has faced problems with Goodyear’s tires a few times in the recent past. The most striking example would be Texas, where his right rear wheel rolled off mid-race on lap 115. After pit road hiccups and a car wreck, Larson could barely scrape up a 21st-place finish. But this time, Lady Luck was on his side, and his misfortune turned into a golden opportunity.

Kyle Larson’s close gave jitters to NASCAR fans

The tri-oval circuit was not kind towards Kyle Larson last year in September. Although he made a strong start when he took the lead from Christopher Bell, stage 2 at Kansas Speedway had problems in store for him. After the 6th caution, he started losing ground and dropped all the way to 20th place. The reason was overused tires and traffic.

Similarly, this year, the 1.5-mile course witnessed some more tire drama in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 5 team. A strategy shakeup ensued on lap 199 when Larson’s team changed four tires. However, Kyle Larson felt his right front tire was starting to wear down on lap 231. But a late caution for spinning Kyle Busch saved his day, as he could pit with his competitors and come back stronger for the lead.

Hence this repeated tire blunder has the NASCAR community in shock. NASCAR on FOX reporter Jamie Little posted the No. 5 car’s battered Goodyear tire that almost cost Larson a victory. She tweeted: “Larson’s right front tire that came off on the final stop before green white checkered! @NASCARONFOX.” 

Fans expressed their shock aptly with some comments. One fan succinctly put their emotions into two words: “that’s frightening”. 

When Kyle Larson’s tire started malfunctioning, he lost track position. He instantly dropped to sixth place from third. A fan quipped that this tire’s photo connected all the dots. “No wonder he dropped back right before the caution came out.” Another fan also said how the picture makes sense now: “That explains a lot, I’m surprised it held together as long as it did”.

One fan was thoughtful about Kyle Busch, the driver whom Kyle Larson stepped on to fetch his win. “Yikes. Larson owes Busch some m&ms”. Another fan commented on Busch’s wrecked tires. “If that’s Larson’s right front tire. Imagine Kyle Busch’s right rear tire that caused the spin”.

Similar to this year, Kyle Busch’s Kansas fortunes have been bleak earlier as well.

Kansas may be a streak of bad luck for Busch

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In light of Kyle Busch’s piling stack of miserable race finishes, he looked forward to two tracks to jump to the winner’s board. One was Dover, and one was Kansas. “These two places will be really good for us to get our footing back in the right direction and find a good, solid basis to land on in order to build into the summer,” he said. But fate had a different story lined up for him, as Kyle Larson spun him on the last lap of the Kansas race. 

This bad luck played out earlier as well. In 2023, he dashed his championship hopes by finishing 35th in the May race at Kansas. Entering the 2016 season, Busch had four DNFs and only four top-ten finishes on Kansas Speedway. Hence this track has a track record of being rough to RCR’s No. 8 driver.

However, maybe Darlington Raceway will be kinder to him, where Busch had won in 2008 and rallied five top-five finishes later.