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Kyle Larson Looks To End Winless Streak At Darlington Raceway

by Hunter Thomas September 3, 2026 0 comments

DARLINGTON, SC – Despite not winning since May 2025, reigning NASCAR Cup Series Champion Kyle Larson is looking to repeat his title effort, but first, he has to tame the Lady in Black.

Larson topped the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway back in November, but so far this season, the driver of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet is surprisingly winless despite 13 top-10 finishes. The two-time champion knows that starting off The Chase off right can set a strong tone for the remaining Postseason.

“It’s just important to get good runs in at every track,” Larson said. “Obviously, if you can start the Chase off with some solid results, some solid points, you’ll just give yourself better hope throughout it. I mean, 10 weeks is a long time, but I think you can quickly feel like you’re out of it and you don’t want to do that.”

Although Larson hasn’t won just yet this season, he has been running pretty well, but he has just had three DNFs and nine finished below 30^th. On the flip side, Larson’s best run of the season came as Kanas Speedway, when he finished runner-up. He has accumulated nine top-five finishes throughout the first 26 races of the year. Drivers have come and gone this season. Tyler Reddick looked unstoppable at the beginning of the season and then Denny Hamlin took over the top spot. Everything resets and now Larson has another opportunity.

“You know, there was a point before we started having our 30th-place finishes where it was like, man, we could get to third in points in the regular season. And then, come Daytona, we had an opportunity to finish 12th in the regular season points. So yeah, it can quickly kind of go either direction. We rattled off a good string of races with four top-fives in a row. We scored a lot more points than I think even Denny (Hamlin) had at that point. So yeah, we just have to work hard at it.”

The Chase looks a little different. The points have rest, but it’s no longer you win and you’re in; The format favors consistency. Larson enters The Chase seventh in the standings, 55 points back, which isn’t unsurmountable but will potentially be a challenge. A driver can earn 76 points in a race, but Larson is going to have to be clutch at Darlington Raceway and beyond. Larson did however, win the 2023 Cook Out Southern 500, and he has three runner-up finishes at the track, so he knows how to navigate the track, Too Tough To Tame.

“Yeah, it’s probably a different pressure, for sure,” Larson said. I mean, you wanted to be consistent in the previous format so you didn’t want to have to rely on wins. Thankfully, I don’t think I was ever in a must-win situation in my time of being in a competitive car in the playoffs, so I don’t really know what that pressure is like. But for me, I think it’s pretty straightforward. You want to maximize your days in any format, so we’re going to try and do that.”

The Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway will broadcast live on the USA Network at 5 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com