Kyle Larson suggested it before but made it clear this time that he doesn’t see himself ever running the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 ‘double’ ever again.
In a story published by NBC Sports, Larson was asked about his waning interest in making his third attempt at the Memorial Day Weekend doubleheader and the 2021 Cup Series champion did not mince words this time.
“I feel like I’ve made it known that I wouldn’t do the Double again,” Larson said Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “I get asked about it all the time. It’s just logistically too tough.”
In real-time, after crashing out of both races last month, Larson was equally non-committal but it could have been blamed on the results. He said the window between the end of the 500 and the start of the 600 “is too tight … So, I don’t really think it’s worth it.”
There isn’t any room for either race to move forward or backwards respectively so Larson doesn’t see a window to go make a third effort.
“I will have FOMO from running the Indy 500. Hopefully, someday I can run that again, but I don’t have any desire to do the Double again. It didn’t go well the last two years.”
In 2024, Larson ran inside the top-10 of the rain delayed Indianapolis race but was hit with a pit road speeding penalty that ended his chance to contend for the win. He infamously missed the start of the 600 due to the rain delay, and never turned a lap due to a rain-shortened finish, which led to a rule change from NASCAR that made it riskier to miss races.
If a driver misses a race for anything other than medical reasons or age ineligibility, the only way they can get a playoff waiver is to lose all their playoff points earned throughout the regular season, meaning they would start the playoffs as a bottom seeded driver.