Kyle Larson repeatedly said for months leading up to his debut in the Indianapolis 500 in May that he just wasn’t that nervous about the upcoming experience.
For a racer that spends so much time competing in a variety of disciplines, Yung Money just viewed the oval spec Indy car as another car not unlike the Midgets, Sprint Cars, Late Models and Stock Cars that came before it.
But as it turns out, one of those disciplines actually made him nervous when he first started and it wasn’t the NASCAR or IndyCar platforms.
“I think for sure that’s maybe more of a thought that’s from somebody who maybe doesn’t dabble in a lot of different disciplines, but for me, I was probably more nervous going from an open-wheel background to running a dirt late model for the first time,” Larson said on Tuesday during an event announcing his return to the Indianapolis 500 in 2025.
“I feel like the Dirt Late Model was more of, people wanted to see me fail in a way … just on the Late Model side just because obviously, you know, you always want to think Late Model guys are better than dirt Sprint Car guys. But I didn’t feel that way at all in doing this experience.”
There is a tremendous rivalry between the Late Model and Sprint Car communities and it is occasionally contentious. There are frequent debates about which disciplines produces the all-around better drivers so there were some in the Late Model community that wanted to see Larson fail when he first started driving those cars in 2021.
He earned their respect instead, winning in his second start, driving for Kevin Rumley against superstars of the discipline who have done this for decades.
For the Month of May, Larson had the full hearted support and endorsement of pretty much the entire North American motorsports community.
“I felt like everyone wanted to see me do good, and that probably allowed me to have more confidence and be a little bit more relaxed about the time and what it might take to learn,” Larson said. “But it was all fun, and I enjoyed the support for sure.”
It also helps that Larson said he immediately felt comfortable in the oval IndyCar because he discovered that the platform had numerous response similarities to the current generation NASCAR Cup Series car.
“Once I got in the car, I mean I immediately could tell it felt a lot like a Cup car,” Larson said. “Then, yeah, I wasn’t surprised about anything. Because to me it didn’t feel like I had to learn anything new. Maybe just restart the procedure, and stuff like that. You know, some buttons on your steering wheel, but even that’s not a big deal. The cars felt very similar, you’re just going faster. And it doesn’t even feel like you’re going that much faster because you have so much grip.
“It’s nice that the Next Gen cars have kind of transitioned more to what an Indy car feels like. I think if this was 2020 or 2021, yeah, it would have been a different experience, and the learning curve would have been a little bit more. But yeah, it wasn’t a big deal.”