Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup Series race at Sonoma on Sunday and played a little prank on his mom in the process. After the race, Larson’s mom took a video of her son and waved at him as he was driving to victory lane. Larson responded by blasting noise from his car, which led to his mom jumping up and covering her ears.
Larson was happy about winning his 26th career Cup Series race after an interesting week. The victory comes after NASCAR announced he will receive a playoff waiver after missing the Coca-Cola 600 last month.
“I think there’s relief on my end even though I wasn’t really paying attention to it,” Larson said before competing in the Toyota/SaveMart 350. “…I cared but the thing I care the most about is the owner championship. At least in that moment. … I was a little less stressed out about it than I think what everyone would imagine you to be. I’m just happy that if I do win a championship now, I can have my name (on it).”
Larson has won three Cup Series races this season, and it’s the second time he’s won at Sonoma with the first being in 2021. Interestingly enough, the 2021 season was big for Larson as he won the Cup Series championship at the end of the year.
How Kyle Larson’s playoff waiver Impact NASCAR’s future
NASCAR’s decision on Larson could mean big changes for the organization going forward. NBC NASCAR analyst Jeff Burton recently saidplayoff waivers need more clarity so the Larson situation won’t happen again.
“Clearly as long as this took, there was a lot of conversation about whether it should be granted or not,” Burton said. “I understand that debate. At the beginning of the year, [Larson] agreed to run every race unless you have an extraordinary circumstance. At that point, NASCAR will look at it and grant a waiver. Deciding another race is not what this waiver was intended for as I see it.
“I’m not opposed to this decision because I think it would be bad for our fanbase for Kyle Larson to not be in it. But I want some more clarity moving forward, and I think the clarity was better for the fans, the teams, everybody. If they would have said, ‘Look man, I know it’s a bad situation with the rain, but you have to run this cup race. We have fans that have come here to watch you race. We need to give them that. If you don’t run we’re not going to grant you a waiver,’ then they could have made that decision 100 percent knowing what it was that was involved, and the fans would have known it as well.”
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