It’s a homecoming weekend for Kyle Larson this weekend at Sonoma Raceway as he prepares for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350.
The northern California native from nearby Elk Grove, California welcome the opportunity to come back and race in his home state even if he doesn’t consider himself a more than average road racer at this point in his stock car career.
“I think it’s a lot of fun,” Larson said. “It’s fun to get to do something totally different than what I ever grew up racing. A pavement oval is totally different than what I grew up doing, but a road course is way opposite. I enjoy it. “
Larson’s extensive experience running sprint cars and dirt tracks has provided what he believes is an advantage to wheeling a Cup car around road racing circuits.
“I feel like I get better and better at it,” he said. “To me, I feel like racing a stock car on a road course is more similar to a sprint car even because you can feel the suspension working more than you can on an oval. So, there are aspects of it that my background benefits to this more so than a normal oval race.
“I enjoy it. This is my home track, so I get to see a lot of friends and family and hangout with people that I don’t get to see very often too. I enjoy this weekend a lot.”
Larson remains winless in 2018 but has put five top-five finishes on the board. While he is frustrated with not having yet made a trip to Victory Lane, Larson remains optimistic about his fortunes with the Chip Ganassi Racing team during the summer stretch.
As for the struggles of the Chevrolet camp during the first 15 races of the new Camaro ZL1 body style, Larson sees progress being made.
“I feel like speed wise we have been about the same as we were last year,” he said. “I think you can look at Stewart-Haas is quite a bit better than they were last year. I feel like compared to the Gibbs cars we are kind of right where we were to end the season with them last year, so we were pretty good there, so no, I don’t feel like our team is frustrated at all.
“I think we look at it as there is a lot of room to gain which is nice because I feel like we are already competitive and if we get any bit better we will be in a good spot. So, I think our team is definitely optimistic.”
