Kyle Larson has quite the day, finishes fourth at Kansas Speedway

Kyle Larson leaned against the quarter panel of his green and blue No. 42 Chevrolet on Saturday night, feet crossed, arms folded across his chest, patiently waiting for his post-race television interview to begin.

In front of him, on a large television screen, he watched Kevin Harvik celebrate his third win at Kansas Speedway.

Larson did that while knowing that the car he was leaning on was likely the best car in the field.

Larson’s topsy-turvy day ended with a fourth-place finish in the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series KC Masterpiece 400. He started the race at the back of the pack, after an incident in Friday’s qualifying forced him to change a tire.

That didn’t stop Larson from leading a race-high 101 laps, and winning the second stage of the race — his first stage win of the season.

Harvick said Larson had the fastest car. Larson had to settle for his fourth top-five finish on the young season.

“It was definitely our best race of the year. We led a lot of laps and had fun,” Larson said.

The fun came from the fact that Larson could run high, low and all points between, and still maintain speed.

“It’s not too hard around the wall here. It’s pretty smooth and has a fair bit of grip,” Larson said. “I’m more comfortable around the wall than anybody, and I can carry a lot of speed up there, but our car was good when I could move off the wall and chase the clean race track.”

Larson was dominating what was, at the time, an uneventful race. The beginning of the end of his chance at victory came after a late restart.

“Kevin was able to get to my quarter and bog me down a little bit. That got me back in traffic some, and I got tight, and (Ryan) Blaney got to me, side drafted me and we got together,” Larson said. “I got some damage. A lot of damage. It kind of ended our shot at a win.”

Blaney put himself at fault.

“I definitely take the blame on that one. I was just trying to side draft hard and the car was kind of right down the front stretch there, and it was just hard racing at the end,” Blaney said.

Larson’s problems compounded further when a miscommunication on the ensuing pit stop led to him exiting his pit box before his left rear tire was secured. He had to quickly pit again to fix the issue.

Larson will take his fourth-place finish to next week’s race at Charlotte.

This story was originally published May 12, 2018 at 11:34 PM with the headline "Kyle Larson has quite the day, finishes fourth at Kansas Speedway."