Denny Hamlin has been saying it all season. At Nashville in May, after a race that ran past midnight and stretched nearly four hours, he said 400 miles was too long, and the event should be 300 miles. Then, at North Wilkesboro Speedway in July, mid-race, he keyed up his radio and said it again. Now he has company. Kyle Larson stepped into the media center after the Window World 450 and backed him up directly.

“Yes, I agree a lot of our Cup races are too long,” he stated, as reported by The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck on X. “Three hours is too long.”

Larson finished 15th at North Wilkesboro after getting caught up in a pit road collision. The race ran 450 laps around the 0.625-mile short track, covering 281 miles in just under three hours; not long by NASCAR standards. But both drivers put it forth as a grind.

The reason comes down to the car and the track. The Next-Gen car is heavy, with wide tires that grip the surface through every corner. On a tight bullring like North Wilkesboro, there are no long straightaways to recover. Drivers muscle the car through hundreds of consecutive high-load corners with no relief. When passing is difficult, and the field runs in a tight train, those laps pile up fast without much changing on track.

Hamlin’s frustration at Nashville was similar but louder. That race ran 400 miles, got hit with an 80-minute rain delay and 11 cautions, and did not finish until well after midnight. Despite securing the win, he still thought it was too long. Similar grievances have been raised by six-time IndyCar Series winner Scott Dixon, who believes it’s “really hard to watch a Cup race these days.”

Both Hamlin and Larson have also pointed to stage breaks as part of the problem. The Cup races are divided into three segments to fit television broadcast windows. Hamlin has argued the extra laps padded around those stages make races longer than they need to be without adding any notable improvements.

Fans Were Not Having It With Kyle Larson

The reaction from fans was immediate, and it split sharply. One poignant comment went harsh.

“Kyle Larson unironically doesn’t even like NASCAR, he just does it for the paycheck,” the user wrote on X.

Along the same lines, another wrote, “I guess the drivers should be paid less since they would be doing less work then. Stupid. If I am traveling to another state to watch a race, I as a fan should get my money’s worth.”

Just to put that into perspective, as per reports on Kyle Larson’s net worth, he makes around $8 million from his No. 5 Chevrolet at Hendrick Motorsports.

One user expressed their frustration from a fan’s perspective. “Man, when I’m paying hundreds of dollars to attend a race, I don’t want it to be over as quickly as possible,” they wrote.

The nostalgia argument came up too. “I wish the races that were shortened to 400 miles were still 500 miles. Texas, Pocono, Charlotte 2, 500 laps at Martinsville. I would love to see a 4.5-hour 500-mile race at Rockingham and Dover happen again.”

NASCAR has already shortened quite a few events over the years, including Pocono, Dover, and Martinsville, all trimmed from 500 miles to 400 miles.

One user landed somewhere around Kyle’s other interests. “So tired of this California whiny a** always crying, just go back to sprint cars and 30-lap races,” they wrote. “I don’t travel hours for a 200-lap race. Let’s get rid of stages, that’s 35 to 40 minutes of the race right there.”

Larson does co-own the High Limit Sprint Car Series and spends his off weeks racing 30-lap dirt features across the country. He has won over 50 major sprint car events, including the Knoxville Nationals. Short, intense racing is what he grew up on.

For some fans, that background explains his take. For others, it is exactly the problem. That last line is the one both drivers would probably agree with most.