{"id":245671,"date":"2025-09-22T06:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/245671\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T06:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:10:10","slug":"kyle-larson-hoping-for-more-of-the-same-at-kansas-after-better-than-expected-loudon-result","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/245671\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Larson Hoping for More of the Same At Kansas After “Better Than Expected” Loudon Result"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last time Kyle Larson raced at Kansas Speedway, on May 11, he acted as if he owned the place. He swept everything, starting with the pole, capturing both stages, and ultimately finishing with his first win of the season.<\/p>\n

It was a dominant performance<\/a><\/strong> all the way around, his third win of the season.<\/p>\n

However, since that great day in Kansas, Larson<\/a> <\/strong>hasn\u2019t been as sharp. In the 18 races since, he has failed to win again and managed just three top-five and five other top-10 finishes, including Sunday\u2019s seventh-place showing in the opening race of the Round of 12 NASCAR Cup playoffs at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

So, does Larson think lightning can strike again for him at Kansas next Sunday?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d the Hendrick Motorsport<\/a><\/strong> driver\u00a0said<\/strong><\/a> after Sunday\u2019s race. \u201cI mean, I would love to think we can. But everybody\u2019s kind of gotten their stuff better throughout the year, so you just never know when you go there.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll we can do is try to execute like we did this spring. It\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve been that dominant. So we\u2019d love to go back there and do that again, but this series is so tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larson\u2019s performance Sunday at Loudon was his best finish since the regular season finale at Daytona, when he finished sixth. But in the first round of the playoffs, Larson struggled<\/a><\/strong>, with finishes of 19th at Darlington, 12th at Gateway, and a disappointing 32nd at Bristol.<\/p>\n

Will a Strong Run at Loudon Carry Over To Kansas?<\/p>\n

Larson hopes that his showing Sunday at Loudon \u2014 although he admits he would have liked to finish higher, ideally in the top five \u2014 signals better times ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think honestly the race went better than I expected it to, starting 16th,\u201d the 2021 NASCAR Cup Champion continued. \u201cWe were able to pass a lot of cars there in the first stage. I would say the first half of the race, I actually felt really, really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then as the track kind of lost grip and I started kind of sliding the fronts more to the center and then also sliding the rears on exit, I just kind of lost a step of competitiveness. But all in all, I\u2019m really, really happy with the day, to gain a decent amount on the cut line [he leaves Loudon third in the standings, a solid 41 points above the preliminary Round of 8 cutoff line]..<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, you\u2019d want to finish a little bit better, but it\u2019s our best run of the playoffs so far. So I\u2019m happy about that and look forward to Kansas. \u2026 We\u2019re digging and I feel close.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time Kyle Larson raced at Kansas Speedway, on May 11, he acted as if he owned…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":245672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[128705,15865,1406,11909,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-245671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-kansas-speedway","9":"tag-kyle-larson","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-new-hampshire-motor-speedway","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115246466829620828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}