Going into the 2014 season, much of the talk surrounded the impressive incoming rookie class. However, as the season has progressed, Chip Ganassi Racing's Kyle Larson has emerged as the standout of the group.
That continued this weekend at Pocono Raceway.
Despite having never raced at the "Tricky Triangle," Larson dominated Saturday's ARCA Racing Series event and finished Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race in the fifth spot, leading his first laps of the season as well.
"I knew from the drop of the green we were going to be pretty good," Larson said. "It seems like most races I fire off really, really loose in dirty air and today I had a lot of grip so I knew that was a good sign. Just worked on it a little bit throughout the day and got better and put ourselves in position on that last restart to try and make a move to get a better finish and it all worked out and we got to fifth. I thought we were a little bit better than Denny (Hamlin, who finished fourth) at the end, but he did a good job holding me off. I'll take a top-five here at Pocono."
P5 at the tricky triangle. I'll take it! @target team was on point all day.
— Kyle Larson (@KyleLarsonRacin) June 9, 2014
To help prepare for his first Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono, Larson drove a manual transmission rental car the week before to get him used to shifting gears, something drivers are required to do multiple times a lap at Pocono.
"I did miss a couple shifts," he admitted. "Just twice, which is a lot better than probably it would have been if I didn't practice shifting a whole lot. But yeah, I mean, surprisingly there was only two times, was when I was battling people when I was pretty excited."
In addition to his practice with a manual transmission, Larson also entered the ARCA race for more track time on Pocono's unique configuration, something that helped throughout Sunday's race.
"I think I learned a little bit that helped me through Turn 2 in the ARCA cars," he said. "They're a lot slower so you have to roll a little bit quicker. I think I just took that into today a little bit, and it seemed like I was rolling a little quicker through Turn 2 than I had been in the test that we did last week and then all of practice this week. Also the car was better, too, so I was able to roll a bit quicker ... just a little bit of technique stuff."
The preparations for Sunday's race certainly paid off for Larson, but he has been impressive across the board through the first 14 races of the season. Already this year, Larson has three top-fives, six top-10s and was runner-up to Kyle Busch in Fontana.
Coming off yet another top-five run, Larson's successful rookie campaign should continue this weekend in Michigan.
