Two months after a disappointing failed attempt to win the Indy 500/Coke 600 doubleheader, Kyle Larson returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday and won the Brickyard 400. It marked the end of a great story. Some NASCAR fans thought the story was too fantastical to be true. After Larson’s highly controversial win, some fans speculated that NASCAR had rigged the results in Larson’s favor.
Larson moved quickly throughout the day. However, as the laps drew to a close, he found himself behind Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney in the race. A caution period late in the race seemed to bring the field together, giving Larson one last chance at victory. Kyle Larson’s win at the Brickyard 400 was highly controversial when Larson, who was in first place at the restart, ran out of gas before the restart and went off the track. When the race resumed, Blaney held on to second place, while Larson took the lead at the right-of-way. Shortly after, a second collision occurred, and the race went into overtime under yellow again. “They definitely shouldn’t have made this green. This is ridiculous,” Blaney said on the radio. “They just gave it to him (Kyle Larson). It’s over now, I’m on top. You can’t win from the front.” Gave that to the damn golden boy. Damn it.”
But things just got even more exciting.
When the race resumed, Larson Blaney pulled away at the priority line, and polesitter Kyle Larson passed Blaney for second place. Driver Ryan Preece spun at that point and crashed into the inside wall. At this point, a caution would force a restart. Instead, NASCAR waited more than half a lap before raising the yellow flag. Larson saw the white flag, crossed the start-finish line and completed the race. Fans felt NASCAR rigged the finish to give them a preferred winner.
“What a sick joke. @NASCAR 100% rigged the finish, knew Preece was dead on the backstretch and intentionally waited for Larson to raise the white flag before calling the caution.” “Damn, that’s awful,” tweeted one fan. “It was rigged to let Larson win. NASCAR is totally worthless. It should have been a warning and that was a long time ago. Truly unreasonable,” someone else said. NASCAR’s president of competition, Elton Sawyer, assured the series it made the right decision. Of course, Sawyer said, “We want it to be natural,” and “We want the teams to sprint to the finish line. We’ve made every effort. We’ve watched the 41 very closely. He turned around.” He really tried, but when he stopped and realized he might have a puncture in his left rear tire, he didn’t want to continue. He couldn’t sprint again and cross the white line, even though he had already taken it. So the decision, although disappointing, was the right one.
But the fans saw it differently. As for the Golden Boy label, Larsson was happy to accept it. What happened happened, but NASCAR still has a lot of work to do to regain its footing in fans’ good graces.
