Kyle Larson airs out his 'frustration' with NASCAR world's reaction to Bristol tire situation
Kyle Larson’s dominant run in this past Saturday’s Bristol Night Race hasn’t exactly been met with the greatest of reviews.
Larson led 462-of-500 laps at Bristol, a race which featured just eight lead changes and saw almost non-existent tire fall-off. The 2021 Cup Series champion let out his frustration with the fan response in a lengthy X post on Tuesday, asking fans to “temper your expectations” when it comes to short track racing in the Next Gen car.
Larson further explained his social media response in a Wednesday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Larson said that both Goodyear and NASCAR aren’t to blame for the lack of tire wear at Bristol. He added that nobody has the answer on how to fix short track racing in the Next Gen car.
“It’s frustration, I guess,” Larson said. “I don’t really ever get on social media anymore, but I was just annoyed. There are so many people in the industry that see a car lead 462 laps and they automatically think it’s a terrible race. ‘There’s no tire wear, there’s no this, no that, blah, blah, blah.’ There has never been tire wear at Bristol besides one race in the last 10 years, so it’s like everybody forgets about the past. Everyone wants to blame Goodyear, and everyone’s got the answers and what not.
“Nobody has the answers. Goodyear doesn’t have the answer. NASCAR doesn’t have the answer about their car and why it doesn’t run good in traffic. Us, the drivers, the teams and engineers — we don’t have the answers either. It’s hard to have opinions and hard when you don’t have the facts to back anything up.
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“So, it’s just frustrating and it’s not like I’m defending our dominating run. I’m just, in a way, trying to defend our sport and defend Goodyear because they get such a bad rap every week like they’re the problem of why our racing sucks. It’s not them.”
Kyle Larson puts on incredible performance at Bristol
Larson recorded a 7.1-second margin of victory and put together the third most dominant Bristol win of all-time. With only four leaders, the 2024 Bass Pro Shops Night Race joined the 2023 Bristol Dirt and 2022 spring Martinsville as races with the fewest number of cars pacing the field in the Next Gen car era.
With tires not wearing as much as they did in the spring, drivers were posting similar lap times making it hard to pass. Everybody but Larson, that is, who clearly had the car to beat all night.