Much has been said about Kyle Larson and his continued stance that he will retire from NASCAR at some point over the next decade, before turning 40, but it’s not entirely accurate that he needs his day job to fund his preferred hobbies.
Larson will make up to 15 Late Model and 25 Sprint Car starts alongside his NASCAR schedule and an Indianapolis 500 bid.
During his appearance on the Kenny Wallace Show, Larson and the veteran NASCAR and dirt racer had a conversation about how driver salaries have evolved over the past decade.
Specifically, with NASCAR returning to something closer to a niche status alongside the emerging popularity of Dirt Sprint Cars and Late Models, Larson said there are racers in both dirt categories who are making more than most drivers on the Cup Series grid.
“I don’t know everybody’s deal,” Larson conceded. “You still have your top tier drivers that are still not making anywhere near what Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon or anybody like that did.”
How salaries on the NASCAR Cup Series has changed
Cup Series drivers were making massive amounts of money when the sport was much more mainstream over the first 10-15 years of this century alongside races that aired on FOX, NBC and ESPN and rivaled NFL viewership at the time.
Since then, driver salaries have continued to trend downwards, with Johnson himself offering in 2021 that those figures have been cut in half.
“I would say, through earnings and potential for a team, it’s been down 50 percent. For a driver contract, from 2015 to where it is now, it’s probably half, even for the top drivers.”
At the same time, marquee dirt sanctioning bodies have never enjoyed the accessibility they have now with every major event airing on a digital streaming platform like DirtVision or FloRacing. This isn’t to say that dirt racing is more viable than NASCAR, because it’s not, but its visibility has increased while NASCAR has decreased.
Larson, with his 2021 Cup Series championship and 17 victories over the past three years, is no doubt one of the top-five earning drivers in the discipline. With dirt racing, Larson commands a huge following and gets to keep the entirety of his merchandising sales as opposed to NASCAR where the team and sanctioning body gets a cut.
Both Sprint Cars and Late Models have raced for a million dollars to win at Eldora Speedway over the past two years. Most driver deals in dirt call for half of the earnings and the entirety of their merchandise sales and personal endorsement deals.
Super Late Model star Jonathan Davenport earned over two million dollars in 2021 and that was just from purse money. Then you add in merchandise, sponsorship and personal endorsement revenue to get to his true take home wage.
So, keep that in mind when Larson says the top Sprint Car and Late Model drivers are earning more than most NASCAR drivers:
“I make a really good living. I’m totally happy with my contract and all that. But, it’s still not anywhere near the level, probably not even half of what Jimmie was getting paid in his heyday.”
“I know I’m making way more than a good majority of the field. I don’t really know what to think. But, I think a lot of guys are just happy to say they’re a Cup Series driver and they don’t care. They just want to be there and racing on Sundays. That just hurts the whole overall driver’s side of it, trying to have leverage for some of these drivers to make more money.”
“I bet you the top 4 drivers in the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series are making more money than a third to half of the Cup Series guys. Probably half of the Cup Series guys. That’s pretty crazy to think about. But, everybody chooses their own route, I guess.”
Larson and brother-in-law Brad Sweet, the five-time World of Outlaws champion, has launched a national Sprint Car Series to challenge the one that has dominated the scene for the past four decades. Their business model includes a soon-to-be launched charter system similar to the one used in NASCAR to better distribute broadcast revenue to the teams.
Upon the conclusion of his NASCAR career, Larson intends to chase championships in both a national Sprint Car and Late Model touring series and will seemingly continue to make millions of dollars in the process.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.