Kyle Larson crew chief on NASCAR star’s Darlington | Sports News

Kyle Larson’s crew turned a hopeless scenario at Darlington into a studying lesson. 

After simply 4 laps, Larson spun out popping out of Turn 2 and smashed into the wall and was unable to get his car to pit street. Instead of ending his day after simply 4 laps, Larson’s crew chief, Cliff Daniels, advised the star to stay within the car so the group may probably work on the vehicle within the storage. 

The coverage states that if a broken car is on pit street, crews may have seven minutes (eight at Atlanta) to restore the car. However, if the car is within the storage, crews may work on the car for nevertheless long it takes to get it up and working again, which is strictly what the crew did. 

For two hours, Daniels and the crew labored on the battered entrance of the Chevrolet, hoping to get it back on the monitor. Despite being tasked with a hefty job, Larson’s group received the car in working order and back within the race, with the star ending in thirty seventh, forward of solely J.J. Yeley, and incomes one level. 

After the race, Daniels defined the rationale behind desirous to work on the car and getting Larson back on the monitor regardless of how the harm may need seemed from the skin wanting in. 

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“Given the opportunity to go through what we had to go through, which was replacing the front bumper bar, a lot of the components within the nose, that was a really good education for our team of just understanding the process with NASCAR [and] their level of expectation,” Daniels said, per Racer.com.

“There are a lot of safety items on the car; there are tethers to the different parts of the nose, the splitter, so there are a lot of little details that if you’re going to embark on crash repair at Talladega in a couple of weeks or other tracks down the road, just from the learning and a process standpoint, today was really valuable for that.”

Of note, NASCAR revised its Damaged Vehicle Policy before the 2025 season, which is what allowed Larson’s team to determine whether or not the Chevrolet was still fixable. Daniels stated that having repairable cars be allowed to return to the races – based on the discretion of the team – ultimately was what helped the 32-year-old.

“The front clip wasn’t hurt, the suspension wasn’t hurt, the steering wasn’t hurt, and nothing in the radiator or oil cooler was hurt,” Daniels continued. “It was really just the aluminum bumper bar, and that’s a lot of work just to get one of those changed. So, we learned all we could and tried to maximize our day.”

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By the time Larson’s car returned, he was behind by 160 laps, with no way of catching up to the rest of the field. Interestingly, Larson was involved in an incident with Bubba Wallace in the waning moments of the race, which allowed Denny Hamlin to win his second straight race. 

Larson braked too hard while in front of Wallace – due to the former seeing Tyler Reddick hit the wall – which caused the latter to tap his car. The No. 5 car then spun out, learning to a caution, which Hamlin took advantage of, beating out Ryan Blaney. 

Speaking directly after winning the race, Hamlin sarcastically thanked Larson for helping him inadvertently win the race. “There’s two people I actually love proper now: My pit crew and Kyle Larson,” Hamlin joked. “Had a little help there, so thanks. The pit crew simply did an superb job. They received it final week [at Martinsville]. They received it this week. It’s all about them.”