It seems like even the most dominating team of the 2024 season cannot escape controversies! The name of Hendrick Motorsports is on everyone’s lips right now. The team reigns supreme with six Cup wins already, as Kyle Larson snatched the latest HMS trophy at Kansas. Yet, fans doubt the legitimacy of Larson’s win due to the apparently crooked start-finish line at the race.

The last overtime lap witnessed Kyle Larson battling Chris Buescher aggressively for the lead. After they crossed the finish line, the No. 17 RFK’s premature celebrations were soon dampened. NASCAR declared Kyle Larson to be the winner, and fans protested saying that Rick Hendrick was being favored. But retired veteran driver Kevin Harvick dissolved any misgivings about the finish.

Kevin Harvick debunks HMS favoritism

Rick Hendrick’s team started the season with a bang with William Byron winning the season-opener Daytona 500.  Byron is currently tied with Denny Hamlin with the most wins, as they own three trophies each. Kyle Larson is close behind, with two wins. Chase Elliott owns one win and a 10.3 average finish, while Alex Bowman is putting together his career-best average finish (13.6).

This Hendrick-flavored season inevitably raised some eyebrows among fans. They claimed that NASCAR is favoring Rick Hendrick, questioning Kyle Larson’s Kansas glory due to a dubious finish line. NASCAR executive Brad Moran cleared up the confusion recently. Now Kevin Harvick further disproved fans’ suspicions.

In a recent episode of ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour’, Harvick narrated his own confusion in Kansas. “Originally, we called it as Chris Buescher winning the race, because that’s what the timing and scoring showed. But it showed .000 as the increment. So we were just talking about an exciting finish. Then we started to show the emotion at the No. 17 pit box. Then we showed Cliff Daniels’ reaction and all of a sudden his reaction changed.  Then he was the winner, and everything just kinda got crazy there.”

Then Kevin Harvick seconded Moran’s explanation, showing how the start-finish line is just for the audience. “Four cars, 0.008 apart, winners 0.001 apart. Obviously, we see the picture there of the start-finish line. But for those of you wondering, that’s not how actually the race is officiated. There’s actually a camera, with an actually perfectly straight line through it that shows the noses of the cars. And those pictures are like a…thousand frames a second.”

Kevin Harvick’s explanation did justice to the overly confusing finish at Kansas. However, the NASCAR community was thrown into a flurry of confusion after one of the historical races of the sport.

A camera was again used to determine the winner

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In the modern-day, high-tech gadgets are available to avoid dubious results in races. But six decades back, when NASCAR was beginning to unfurl its flags, controversies were mostly attached to winners. One prime example of this is the first-ever Daytona 500 race in 1959. Lee Petty and Johnny Beauchamp performed a photo finish, making Bill France really happy.

But despite the entertaining race, officials were unclear about who they should give the trophy. NASCAR initially said Beauchamp was ahead by 10 inches at the line, while Petty claimed to be the leader. But then the track’s photographer, T. Taylor Warren, came to everyone’s rescue three days later. His valuable photograph confirmed Lee Petty as the winner. 

As Kyle Larson recorded NASCAR’s closest finish in its 76-year-long history, his victory may be mired in controversy for some time.