It’s Going to be a Frustrating Year for Kyle Larson Fans...and ATL Notes

Kyle Larson showed signs of a near-future visit to victory lane Sunday at Atlanta; he led the most laps with 142 and won the first stage.

However, he couldn’t close the deal by a long shot with a disappointing 12th-place finish.

It was these kinds of days that plagued Larson and his adoring fanbase in 2018 and it appears to be more of the same in 2019.

Now this isn’t to say Larson will miss the playoffs or even go winless in 2019 (I predicted he would make a comeback this year). However, this is to say there will be plenty of days where he “looks like” the guy who will win or will “almost” win races.

This is like the Chase Elliott saga all over again (99 starts before his first win), except we’ve seen what Larson can do on the racetrack already. He had a breakout 2017 with four wins and was a favorite to go to the final four that year before sadly being eliminated after the Round of 12.

He followed that up with a winless 2018 that also saw him finish 2nd six times and barely made the Round of 12 after passing a crashed Jeffrey Earnhardt at the raucous Charlotte Roval race on the final lap.

Finishing seventh at a chaotic Daytona 500 and following up with a 12th at Atlanta isn’t the end of the world for Larson and his fans, especially as long as he keeps racking up stage points. But knowing Larson can win races and following up with near misses has to be annoying at best and absolutely soul-sucking at worst.

The good news is Auto Club Speedway is just three weeks away, where we’ll most likely see “Two-mile Kyle” get his first win in what will then be over 50 races.

Notes from Atlanta:

• Ford had quite a banner day Sunday, with Brad Keselowski notching his first win since Las Vegas last summer (while recovering from the flu and an overheating racecar) and all four Stewart-Haas Racing drivers finishing in the top 10.

• Joe Gibbs Racing held strong Sunday with all four drivers finishing in the top 11. Expect more of this in 2019.

• Hendrick Motorsports should have tried a different package Sunday; Alex Bowman was Hendrick’s top finisher at 15th place, and William Byron finished 17th. Chase Elliott and Jimmie Johnson didn’t even finish on the lead lap.

• Give it up for Chris Buescher for starting 30th and finishing 9th! Fantasy owners should be happy to see this longshot boost their points.

• Kurt Busch rebounded from a dismal Daytona with his first top-five finish for Chip Ganassi Racing. It’ll be interesting if this success carries over for the rest of the season.