LONG POND, Pa. — Crew chief Cliff Daniels admits he was ready to park Kyle Larson’s car when there were not enough laps left for Larson to gain any more positions last weekend at Mexico. It was Larson who led the charge to remain in the race.
That led to Larson, who finished 36th, scoring the bonus point for the fastest lap.
One point can make a difference — Larson lost the regular season championship last year by a point.
But that wasn’t necessarily the impetus for Larson staying in the race.
Larson spent a good part of last week’s race in the garage after his car was damaged when Kyle Busch slid and collected several other’s early in the event.
Daniels said Larson’s car suffered suspension damage. That could be replaced under NASCAR’s Damaged Vehicle Policy. The team also had what Daniels called a “severely bent” right front shock. That could not be replaced.
When Larson returned more than 20 laps behind the leaders, Daniels said he kept an eye on when they would reach a point where they would not be able to make up any more positions.
“So we waited until three laps after that point, just because, to be honest, I still have a little PTSD from Darlington where ultimately we did affect the outcome of the race completely inadvertently,” Daniels told NBC Sports on Saturday at Pocono Raceway.
Larson’s car was damaged in a crash on Lap 4 at Darlington earlier this season. His crew spent about two hours in the garage making repairs and he gained one position. Running more than 150 laps behind the leaders, Larson slowed to keep away from Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney as they raced for the lead. But Bubba Wallace got into the back of Larson’s car and spun him, causing a caution that changed the outcome of the race, allowing Denny Hamlin to win.
With Darlington in mind, Daniels said he called Larson into the garage last weekend at Mexico when there were no more positions for them to gain.
Daniels said that Larson told him: “Hey man, are we done? I don’t really want to DNF. I just want to be able to keep running.”
Asked about why he wanted to keep racing multiple laps down, Larson said Saturday: “Up to that point, we had ran some laps and I was kind of just in traffic, so I didn’t get a chance to go for the fast lap. When we came in, I was like, ‘Well, let me at least go for a fast lap. If we can’t get it, I’ll come back in. Nobody DNFs more than me, so I didn’t want to add another one.”
After Larson’s request, Daniels looked at ways to help make the car faster.
“So, ultimately, we started throwing adjustments at the car, tires and just doing a lot of things,” Daniels said. “It was a great team exercise of just the pit stop reps for backward pit stops. There was value in that. We changed air pressures a lot. There was value in that. We made adjustments on the car. There was value in that.
Daniels noted that the repairs the crew performed in Mexico were different from what they had to do with the car in Darlington.
“Darlington was a very different experience than Mexico because in Darlington it was pretty much cosmetic body on the car,” Daniels said. “We had to replace the front bumper structure, we had to do a lot to get the nose patched back up and get it on the car. That was all kind of unique to that. There was really no suspension damage in Darlington.
“Complete opposite of that in Mexico. It was all suspension damage with very minimal to the body. Procedurally, there were a few things we carried as a team from what the Darlington kind of process was to the Mexico process of just how to communicate through who’s going where, who’s attacking which area.
“But it’s crazy how much we still learn because it was so different, just very suspension-heavy and what we had to replace in Mexico. The value of that to me you just don’t know until you kind of have that moment in the playoffs.”
