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Kyle Larson tried everything he could to stay in the hunt for the win at Kansas Speedway. Kurt Busch’s challenge during the closing laps, however, left Larson in second place.
The 23XI Racing driver went inside for Larson on lap 259 of 267 and passed the latter's #5 Chevrolet with the lead for the final time. Larson again drifted up the track and into the wall, later eventually being edged out by the winner Busch by 1.413 seconds. It was the Hendrick Motorsports driver's second P2 finish of the season.
During the post-race interview, Larson stated that he was racing for the win but was trying too hard to hold onto the lead on the final lap and put his car too tight at the end of the race. Claiming that he enjoyed racing with Busch as he made him work hard throughout the final stage, Larson said:
“We were racing for the win there. Yeah, he never got into me, so I’m trying to squeeze throttle to get position on him and just got tight, so that was fun racing with Kurt the last half of the race. I was trying hard the whole time. I about spun out in front of him there at some point I think in the third stage, and then we just kept fighting through it.”
Larson’s #5 Chevrolet Camaro is one of the few cars that could keep pace with the Toyotas at Kansas Speedway, which claimed six of the top-10 positions.
“Thanks to my team for building me a war machine”- Kyle Larson
Further in the interview, Kyle Larson thanked his team for building such a strong car. He later admitted that he hit the wall “a lot” during Sunday’s race. Expressing happiness with his car's performance, he said:
“Thanks to my team for building me a war machine. I hit the wall a lot today and just struggled. Like people could put air on me and get me really tight and then I hit the wall, so we’ll work on that and figure it out, but happy with my car.”
The NASCAR Cup Series returns next weekend for the All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway. The action will go live at 8 pm EST on Sunday, May 22.
