Hendrick Motorsports continues to appear to be the pinnacle of NASCAR (at least on paper). All four cars are still competitive on most weekends, Chase Elliott has already won twice, and the team is still accumulating top-five finishes. However, cracks are starting to appear beneath those figures. The road-course struggles at Watkins Glen especially raised eyebrows, and now Kyle Larson himself has openly admitted HMS simply “was really bad” last weekend, while also explaining why growing up in California helped shape him into one of NASCAR’s most versatile talents.

Kyle Larson admits HMS’ Watkins Glen meltdown

“We were really bad this past weekend, so, but I think we know, as you know, any of the weekends that we struggled out, I think we’ve learned from it,” Kyle Larson recently admitted in an interview to Frontstretch after one of the strangest road-course weekends Hendrick Motorsports has endured in years.

For an organization historically dominant at Watkins Glen, the performance was almost unrecognizable. Early in the race, William Byron appeared to be HMS’s best chance. Byron slowly fought his way into the top 10 and remained there for the first forty-four laps after qualifying 13th as his teammates lingered deep in the field.

However, catastrophe struck just as Stage 2 was coming to an end. Byron’s Chevrolet’s right rear toe link was damaged when he spun into the Bus Stop chicane. He eventually hobbled home in 36th place after repairs put him four laps behind the leaders, essentially terminating his afternoon.

Things weren’t much better elsewhere inside the HMS camp. Larson finished a distant 23rd and never displayed race-winning speed, despite winning the Watkins Glen twice and winning six road courses in his career, before this attempt. After spending the majority of Sunday stuck in 30th place, Chase Elliott (possibly the organization’s best active road-course specialist with seven victories of his own) managed to finish in 24th place.

Equally uncompetitive, Alex Bowman, reached the finish line in 25th place while still attempting to find his rhythm following his recent injury break and return. Sunday was a total and utter catastrophe for a squad that has won at Watkins Glen eleven times and regularly enters road-course weekends as the benchmark organization.

Still, Larson believes the struggles may ultimately prove valuable. And fittingly, his confidence about bouncing back ties directly into the unique racing education he received growing up in California.

Why Larson believes California made him a better racer

“California is such a big state, but specifically Northern California, there’s just a lot of racing that you can do. And then you know, as you get further south, there’s even more. I was lucky, you know, growing up racing sprint cars, you know, at tracks that were really difficult to handle, really sticky rough race tracks out here that you got to run really hard at. So I felt like it kind of prepared me for a lot of different scenarios and different race cars.”

For Kyle Larson, that California upbringing became the foundation for the ultra-versatile driver NASCAR fans know today. Larson was up in a family fully engrossed in racing culture in Elk Grove, California. He was born in 1992 and spent most of his early years traveling throughout the state to attend dirt races, frequently attending up to 80 events each year.

He began competing in outlaw karts at the age of seven, and he soon established himself as one of Northern California’s most exceptionally talented young people. And, as you may be aware, Northern California dirt racing is no easy training ground. Many California dirt tracks are brutally tricky, slick, abrasive, and constantly shifting, in contrast to smoother, more predictable tracks in other parts of the nation. Surfaces change throughout the night, forcing drivers to adjust lap after lap.

Add in fiercely competitive local talent pools and year-round racing opportunities thanks to California’s moderate weather, and it becomes the perfect environment for developing car control instincts. Larson has always appeared at ease in nearly anything with four wheels, including sprint cars, midgets, stock cars, dirt late models, and Cup cars on road courses, which can be explained by this background.

California is still regarded by many drivers and spectators as one of the best grassroots racing destinations in the United States, particularly for dirt racing. Because it requires aggression, flexibility, and a raw feel behind the wheel to survive, the state has produced generations of exceptional drivers. And judging by Larson’s career, that racing education clearly paid off.