When Kyle Larson entered Rick Hendrick’s mansion for the first time, he did so as a pariah. A man on the verge of doom, and a driver who’d been dropped by all of his associates just months prior. During a live-streamed iRacing event in April 2020, the driver had reportedly used a racial slur when he lost communication with his spotter. “You can’t hear me?” he had said before using the N-word. The repercussions were almost immediate.

His team, Chip Ganassi Racing fired him, following an indefinite NASCAR suspension, severed ties with Chevrolet, and all three of his primary sponsors (Credit One Bank, McDonald’s and Fiserv) dropped off like dominoes. “I was rightly suspended by NASCAR…In an instant, I turned a lot of lives upside down and destroyed my own reputation,” Larson had written in his apology essay later. And while veterans like Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch had rallied behind the shunned veteran, critics and Larson himself was doubtful about how effective his comeback would be, if one were to ever exist. “I had very little optimism that I’d ever get back,” he’d said. In the end, though, the folks at Hendrick Motorsports didn’t think twice.

Already touted to be 7X Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson’s replacement before the incident, both team owner Hendrick and Jeff Gordon were absolutely sure they wanted Kyle Larson to be a part of their garage. “I wanted him in the worst kind of way. I knew Kyle and I thought I knew what kind of person he really was. I knew the story (surrounding the racial slur). It never crossed my mind that it would be something to worry about going forward,” the team owner had said last year. And so it began: The meticulous path back to glory, starting with an important discussion in Hendrick’s basement that left the future Cup Series champion speechless.

Notably, Jeff Gordon wanted to let drivers do their maximum to tackle the new Next-Gen car. And that fell in place with Larson’s dirt racing ambitions, too. In a June 25 episode of the Never Settle with Jimmie Johnson and Marty Smith podcast, Larson let out his initial apprehension: “Before I got hired, I went to Rick’s house and into his basement. A conversation about racing and what I’d been up to. It got to the point in the end when he was like, ‘Yeah, we wanna hire you. We want you to be part of our team…Is there anything that you want?’…I thought I knew that Rick and Jeff and Hendrick Motorsports would be totally against dirt racing. I was good friends with Kasey [Kahne], and I could see that they wouldn’t allow him to run, and when they did, Hendrick didn’t seem like he would love it. And I was nervous.”

“I was like, ‘I’m just gonna throw it out there: I’d really like to race sprint cars still.’ I was waiting for them to be like, ‘Yeah, no.’ But they were like, ‘Yeah, no problem! We’ll let you do that.’ Jeff Gordon was like, ‘You know, we’re changing our culture at Hendrick Motorsports, we’re really trying to be different.’ I was like, ‘Wow, Awesome’…Man, they’ve been great. They’ve never said no to one dirt racing request I’ve had. It could be the night before a Cup race, and I had to fly three hours. They know I’m gonna get home at 4 in the morning, they’re cool with it…I’m sure they prefer I don’t do it sometimes, but it’s been great.”

Interestingly, even Rick Hendrick had talked about the #5 driver’s multi-faceted ambitions in 2024, noting, “It didn’t bother me that he wanted to run all the other series he runs. I knew how important that was to him, so I accepted it. His non-NASCAR racing was never a great concern. I think it makes him a better driver over here because he runs those other series so often.”

HMS wanted to change their team culture, and a versatile driver like Kyle Larson led that charge. Triple Crown and Chili Bowl winner joined the newly revamped Hendrick Motorsports. Credit to them, that very year in 2021, Larson won the Cup Series championship. This was backed by more trophies from his non-NASCAR adventures, Chili Bowl Nationals, Kings Royal, Prairie Dirt Classic, and Knoxville Nationals.

And even though his non-NASCAR stint hasn’t led to success, this hasn’t discouraged Larson from competing at such events.

Riding out every storm 

In the quest to be great at something, things are not always hunky-dory. In his build-up to the second Double attempt in 2025, Kyle Larson went through many mishaps. He wrecked his car in Indy 500 practice, and then struggled again during his second Double attempt as he faced twin wrecks in both IndyCar and NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600. Yet Larson shrugged off these crashes and led 221 of 267 laps to win the Cup Series race at Kansas. But now his obsession has found a new destination: Appearing in a 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

This immunity to ups and downs reflects Kyle Larson’s resilient attitude. Chad Knaus, HMS VP of Competition, reflected on this unique talent: “Nothing really gets under his skin…doesn’t get wound up. He doesn’t get emotional about maybe something that happens on the racetrack.” Knaus also echoed what Hendrick and Gordon agreed to in their first meeting with Larson. He said, “He loves driving race cars and he loves competing, and that’s something that’s pretty special. And when you have a young man that talented that wants to drive all the time, you need to let him do that.”

That is why we keep seeing Kyle Larson at so many dirt races alongside his Cup Series schedule. Let us see what Hendrick’s ‘golden boy’ is cooking next.