Kyle Larson had a lot to overcome to score a top-10 finish in Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway.
Larson had qualified 18th for Saturday night’s race but was relegated to the back of the field after missing driver introductions.
“A little miscommunication and was late to intros,” he explained.
Despite the starting spot deep in the field Larson was able to work his way to the front. But then the track bar on Larson’s Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet broke making handling nearly impossible. His team took out as much wedge as possible on a pit stop hoping to compensate for the issue.
“I’m not exactly sure what happened to it,” said Larson after finishing ninth. “It was down five and a half inches on my dash and I could move it. They couldn’t move it under the pit stops and like I said they had to crutch it with the wedge so I’m not sure what causes that, but it happened.”
The adjustments did allow Larson to move forward in the running order and late in the race he was turning some of the fastest laps on track. He eventually ran out of time trying to run down the lead pack and race winner Martin Truex Jr. but Larson did the best with what was thrown his way.
“It’s hard to say if I would have had anything to win,” he said. “I drove by the No. 78 (Truex Jr.) and then right after that we had our trackbar issue there and went plowing tight. Then we had to crutch it with wedge there the last run and it drove okay, just built being back really tight at the last 25 laps or so. So, yeah, it’s hard to say if I would have won or not, but I would have at least liked to have had the shot.”
As Truex Jr. added another win to the record of “The Big Three,” which includes Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick, Larson is still searching for his first win of the season.
“I don’t know,” Larson said. “It’s frustrating because I feel like I had a car capable of competing with them. I felt like I was better than the No. 4 (Harvick). I passed the No. 18 (Busch) a couple of times, passed the No. 78 there before that second to last run. I passed him and kind of drove away from him for a few laps until right when our trackbar broke.
“Like I said, it’s hard to say if I would have had a shot to win. You never know how these races will play out, but I would have loved to have had a shot.”
