FORT WORTH, Texas – Once thought as a serious championship contender entering the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs has been anything but for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates driver Kyle Larson.
After being eliminated from post-season contention two weeks ago at Kansas Speedway with his first engine failure at Ganassi, the Elk Grove, Calif. suffered his third straight DNF (did not finish) after being involved in a fiery crash on Lap 283 of 334 in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Running inside the top-10 for a majority of the race, Larson’s day took a dramatic turn during Stage 3 when he suffered a space issue with the right front of his No. 42 Credit One Bank Chevrolet.
From there, his day plummeted. On Lap 282, he brushed the frontstretch wall before losing control of his Chevrolet the following lap in Turn 2.
Larson’s car briefly caught fire, but he climbed from his battered vehicle uninjured.
“We can’t really execute, whether it’s bad pit stops, or bad luck with whatever happen to our right front (tire), we had a loose wheel and had to pit a couple of times to fix it,” Larson said.
“It’s frustrating because I know I had the best car. Lose track position and that’s what happens. You try to move forward and it’s hard to pass here. You try to find some stuff and you get into the wall.”
Entering his 145th Cup Series race, Larson had never had not been running at the finish of three straight races. Early in his career driving for HScott Motorsports in 2013, he suffered back-to-back engines failures at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
After the engine issue at Kansas, he wrecked after contact with the lapped car of Kyle Weatherman during last Sunday’s First Data 500 at Martinsville and finished 37th.
He was credited with a 37th place finish at Texas, his worst finish at the 1.5-mile speedway since the fall race two years ago.
With four victories in the regular season, the 24-year-old began the Playoffs as the second seed among the 16 playoff drivers.
Three straight top-fives at Chicago, New Hampshire and Dover (Del.) International Speedway propelled him into the Round of 12, but even with a 10th and 13th in the opening two races at Charlotte and Talladega – the finishes weren’t strong enough to prevent eliminating after finishing 39th at Kansas.
Larson will return to Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway for the penultimate race of the year hoping his runner-up performance earned in March will be enough to right the ship before the season-finale at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway on Nov. 19.
Though Larson didn’t seem that optimistic.
“I don’t know. Can’t wait for the last lap at Homestead.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
