Does Kyle Larson know definitely something the rest of us do not?
Speaking to host Brad Gillie over a live stream of the Race Industry Week trade show, Larson briefly addressed a season that led the NASCAR Cup Series in race wins but did not result in a final four appearance due to troubles experienced during the Round of 8.
“It was a great year. Yeah, I was super, super happy with the performance of our race team all year long,” Larson told Gillie. “We had a ton of speed from race one to race 38, really. Yeah, I was happy. Obviously you want to make the final four and have a shot at the championship but at the same point, like, I also understand the format and know kind of how crazy it can be and all that. So, I don’t let finishing sixth in points take anything away from our season.
“I know we had, you know, one of the best if not the best season. We led the series in most every category. So, really proud of the team and their hard work. Yeah, and I think we left some out on the table, too. I’m excited about next year and hopefully, we can continue to evolve and get stronger as a team and yeah. Win some more races, lead more laps, and who knows? Who knows what the new format will be? So, maybe it will benefit us somehow.”
“Who knows what the new format will be?”
Is that a definitive conviction that NASCAR is going to make some kind of tweak? All NASCAR officials have said thus far is that the playoffs are here to stay but that the format will be given a deeper look over the off-season to see if improvements can be made.
Elton Sawyer, the executive vice president of competition signaled a willingness to make tweaks last month.
“We’re going to have Playoffs, we’re going to have a Playoff format, but what we will do, is we will take input from our fans, our competitors, and our industry stakeholders this off-season, and if there is a way to tweak it, make it better, we will do that,” Sawyer said.
“I think as we take a deeper dive and look at this and look at how you get in the Playoffs, and how you get from round to round. Is that equitable? Is that the best way to do it? I think you take all that input — and we have some really smart people in our industry, with our teams and drivers, and being able to get feedback — maybe what we have is the best model, but if it’s not, we’re open, we’re all ears on it.”
“We have some ideas, but we want to make sure as an industry, we’re doing the right thing for our sport and the right thing to crown our champions.”
On one hand, maybe Larson just assumes that line meant there would be changes or maybe he really does know something everyone else does not.
