The NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award has a deep history that long precedes the modern era of online voting. It traces its roots all the way back to 1949, when the honor was initially decided by a panel of NASCAR officials. The list of winners is a roll call of NASCAR royalty, including icons like Richard Petty and Bobby Allison, but the award’s identity was truly forged by the two dynasties of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bill Elliott. And now, the baton has been passed.

The current face of this fan-voted legacy is Chase Elliott, who established a dominating modern dynasty by securing the award for an eighth consecutive season as of 2025. His consistency in the polls now places him third on the all-time wins list behind only his father, Bill Elliott, with 16 wins, and Earnhardt Jr. with 15 wins. And now, the 2025 Cup Series champion wants to join the party as well.

Kyle Larson challenges Chase Elliott’s fan dominance

In an interview with host Large of the Rubbin is Racing podcast, Larson was given a hypothetical, almost sacrilegious question: Would he trade one of his highly coveted championship trophies for the Most Popular Driver Award? Larson, a driver who has now cemented his status as a multi-time champion alongside HMS legends like Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, met the question with thoughtful earnestness, revealing, “Chase has a stranglehold on it, but it’s a weird thing because I feel like my fan base is every bit as large as his or bigger.”

The reason the MPD award holds such allure for Larson is precisely because it represents the one measure of success currently dominated by his teammate, Elliott. Despite his consistent dominance, Larson feels his own popularity and impact on the sport’s overall viewership are commensurate with Elliott’s. “I really would love to win that award someday,” he contended.

Larson quickly analyzed the discrepancy between his perceived fan base size and his results in the NMPA fan vote, pointing to a potential difference in fan engagement. The MPD award is determined solely by online voting, where fans cast multiple votes daily during the polling window. Larson deduced that the reason for Elliott’s uninterrupted success likely lies not in a smaller personal following for him, but in the dedication and organizational efforts of Elliott‘s supporters.

“Yet he dominates the polls every year. Maybe his fans vote and mine don’t,” Larson mused. His comment suggested that Elliott’s “Chase Elliott Nation” is uniquely motivated and coordinated in its voting efforts, treating the award as a mission, a factor that has historically elevated the popularity of the Elliott and Earnhardt families for 35 consecutive years.

For a driver accustomed to winning championships through speed and strategy, receiving a trophy purely through public favor presents a unique emotional value. “It would mean so much, it’s weird saying that in like its such an awkward thing,” Larson confessed, navigating the difficulty of publicly stating a desire for an award based on subjective appeal rather than objective performance.

Larson concluded his thought by reinforcing the extraordinary nature of what it would take for any driver to defeat Elliott in the fan vote. Having achieved the sport’s ultimate on-track prize twice, he views the MPD award as a rare, seemingly unreachable validation of his career’s wider impact. “I would love to win the Most Popular Driver award. I feel like I would love to win it because it’s so far out for me winning it, anybody winning it,” he summarized.

Larson concluded with a sense of playful awe, imagining the monumental surprise of such a win, stating, “If I won I’d be like ‘Holy sh-t! It’s incredible.'” This highlights that while championships prove dominance, the Most Popular Driver award offers a unique form of immortality. On the other hand, Larson cannot deny the mental and physical exhaustion of his championship-winning 2025 season.

On the other hand, this time, the situation post the MPD awards became a bit ironic as a lot of Elliott’s fans were upset that he missed receiving the very award his fans voted him for. In his defense, while thanking his fans on X, Elliott mentioned in the caption, “I don’t take this award lightly and truly appreciate all the support each and every one of you shows to me and my family.”

How the Double broke Kyle Larson before reigniting his drive

Kyle Larson‘s 2025 season was defined by a rare struggle that tested even a two-time Cup Series champion. The strain from attempting the legendary ‘Double’ left lasting effects. “Well, I think there is probably a lot that went on. I think there’s definitely some truth to that, just mentally draining,” Larson admitted in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The grueling effort, marred by rain delays and crashes in both events, the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, became one of the toughest challenges of his career.

As exhaustion lingered, Larson faced mounting struggles within the HMS camp. “I just didn’t do a good job. So I was kind of down on myself in and lost some confidence,” he confessed. The No. 5 team’s mid-season slump, marked by flawed setups and self-doubt, became evident when even Darlington exposed their shortcomings. “We quickly figured out where we had gotten off in those couple of months,” Larson recalled, crediting HMS’s quick response for turning the tide just in time for the playoffs.

The difficult stretch, though painful, ultimately strengthened Larson and his team. “We were doing a good job executing. And I actually think being as slow as we were made us a better, stronger team as far as execution,” he reflected. By the end of the year, the group had regained its rhythm, consistently running up front and contending again. As Larson put it, “I feel like we got back on track and competitive and running up front,” making Phoenix a proving ground as well as a redemption arc for the team.