The Cup Series race at Las Vegas should have gone a lot better for hometown hero Kyle Busch. It’s been a while since Rowdy has won at the track, but a poor pitstop cost him a penalty and allowed Kyle Larson to not worry about him as he took the checkered flag. The #8’s splitter was over the pit box line, which his crew did not notice and got to work, which forced race control to issue a penalty. It was heartbreaking for the former Cup Series champion, but race winner Larson did not mind poking fun at it recently.

Going into Phoenix, the driver of the #5 has a lot of confidence in himself. He displayed fantastic defense to hold off Tyler Reddick to record his first win of the year. Larson is one of the favorites for the title and, with performances like that, it’s easy to understand why. He and his crew have been in top form of late, something Rowdy is missing.

Kyle Larson blames it on the #8 crew rather than Rowdy

The Hendrick Motorsports driver is not really known for making any controversial comments, so this was a bit surprising for some fans. Taking a jibe at the Richard Childress Racing pit crew, Kyle Larson suggested that they should have done a better job. “I think their pit crew should have held their sign a little stronger so maybe they didn’t slide through and come over the line,” he said, getting a laugh out of the reporters gathered at the press conference.

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Yung Money himself was pretty proud of his pit crew and he credited a lot of its competence to his crew chief, Cliff Daniels. They are a Cup Series-winning pair and getting things right is what is the bare minimum expectation at a team like HMS. So Kyle Larson was not surprised at all to see just how good his crew has been of late.

“I think based off of how we’ve executed first handful weeks, I’m happy with where all of our team is at. The race cars have been really fast, out pit crew’s been performing. I feel like this solid race I was able to put together last week and all that was great so…sure you want to get all areas better if you can. I feel like Cliff (Daniels) does a really good job of leading our team and coaching and prepping and all that so I’m not surprised we’re executing well right now but I hope we can keep it going,” the driver of the #5 said.

Motorsport is a team sport and if the team doesn’t perform, the driver is bound to fail. Working hard every day and evolving is the name of the game as far as crew chief Cliff Daniels is concerned.

Cup Series-winning crew chief talks evolution as Kyle Larson soars

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Chevrolet might have won the first 3 races, but the veteran crew chief is wary of the competition. It was thanks to his driver’s intelligence that Tyler Reddick did not beat the #5 in Vegas. The 23XI Racing car had the Chevy beaten for pace towards the end. Daniels referred to how good 23XI Racing looked as he spoke about how his crew needed to get better with each passing day.

“We’re going to have to keep evolving pretty quick because the more they start to get their stuff figured out, the gap is going to get closed. I know that win both stages and win the race, you would say we had the dominant day, but there were some cars that were pretty tough right there with us, and at the end of long runs, the 45 was there every time. I think the gap is actually tighter than what it may look on paper,” Kyle Larson’s crew chief said as per RACER.

Yung Money was one of the best drivers last season and just missed out on his second Cup Series championship in Phoenix. On Sunday, he goes back to the same track where he lost the opportunity and this time, redemption will be on his mind.

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