To fathom that Kyle Larson has been winless in the NASCAR Cup Series since May last year is not just surprising, but difficult to believe. That too, after being a Cup champion eventually in November 2025. However, if not NASCAR, Larson can finally take a sigh of relief and silence his critics after his recent sprint race success, his first win of the year.

Kyle Larson’s sprint race success amid winless NASCAR streak

Kyle Larson has won the recently concluded Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing season opener at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway dirt track. Speaking about his win on Thursday, the Hendrick Motorsports driver shed light on his tactics while going for the win.

“It was a good race,” Larson told FloRacing. “I felt really good about things, settled into 5th early, felt better than Brent, Corey and Tanner, but they were all racing pretty hard in front of me, and just honestly I wanted to beat Corey to 2nd, which I was able to do that, thought that was pretty crucial, but yeah, Gio had gotten out to such a big lead, I didn’t know if he could get through traffic good, I might not ever have a shot.”

Following this, Larson highlighted how he kept Corey Day, Giovanni Scelzi, and others at bay and snatched the victory to start his Sprint racing campaign for the 2026 season positively. Here’s what he stated further on this:

“But when I got to 2nd I got some clean air to get to traffic and I noticed him not too far in front of me after a few laps, so I was like, okay, I got a good shot here, and yeah, the bottom was really narrow and tricky and greasy and all that, so yeah, he was being really diligent to try to hit it, missed it a couple of times, slid across, and it just allowed me to generate some runs and yeah, get to the lead, and then yeah.”

Notably, Larson started Thursday’s race from fifth position and spent most of the first half of the race behind Giovanni Scelzi, the race leader. However, the turning point for him came on lap 18 of the race, when he executed a slide job in turn 1 to take the lead of the race.

From then on, he kept his lead and then went on to take the checkered flag. Day, whom Larson mentors, came home behind him. Ty Gibbs, another driver from the NASCAR Cup Series, crashed on Lap 1 of the race.

With this, Larson took his win at the High Limit Racing to 10th, and is currently fourth on all time behind Rico Abreu (25), Brad Sweet (14), and his junior Corey Day (11). While his High Limit Racing career is prospering, Larson wants the same in NASCAR, and end his winless year-long streak.

Kyle Larson on the Vegas job

Currently, Kyle Larson is going through a 28-race winless streak, and at Las Vegas, he would not want it to turn 29. Coming into this race weekend, Larson will compete at Las Vegas, a track where he has tested success before — in 2021, 2023, and 2024 when he won the Pennzoil 400, South Point 400, and Pennzoil 400 races, respectively.

Besides the Cup Series, he will also race in the O’Reilly Auto Parts, making it a busy race weekend. As he sets for the weekend in NASCAR after a win with Silva Motorsports in High Limit, here’s what an optimistic Larson said:

“The bottom of the racetrack’s been the most favorable line. Restarts are crazy. I enjoy it. It’s a great track for the 5 team.” (Via wcnc.com)

Kyle Larson, the defending Cup Series champion, currently stands in 10th place after four races. His best finish this season came at Phoenix, where he came home in third place behind race winner Ryan Blaney and second-place Christopher Bell.