INDIANAPOLIS — Kyle Larson’s final tune-up before he began his Indianapolis 500 preparations ended with him rolling his sprint car five times in a crash at Kokomo Speedway.
The NASCAR star brushed himself off and made the 65-mile journey back to Indianapolis Motor Speedway eager to forget a Monday night he called “probably the worst night I think we’ve ever had sprint racing.”
The change of scenery wasn’t much of an improvement.
Opening day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was essentially washed out Tuesday and Larson was able to turn only two laps before the session was halted. He’s the fifth driver in history to attempt to run the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, but first since Kurt Busch in 2014.
Tony Stewart in 2001 is the only driver to complete all 1,100 miles.
It will be Larson’s debut Indy 500 in a joint deal struck between Arrow McLaren, which is fielding a fourth car for Larson in conjunction with Hendrick Motorsports.
It is a two-year deal that Larson has known about for more than a year and has eagerly anticipated the two weeks of prep for the Indy 500. But every time he’s gotten to the speedway, it has rained.
Larson was part of the two-day open test in April but got only 47 laps in about two hours of track time before the session was washed out.
Drivers on Tuesday got just 23 minutes and 37 seconds of green flag time before it began to rain. The entire day was canceled some five hours later, and IndyCar has added an additional two hours of track time to Wednesday’s schedule.
“This feels like a normal day for me here at Indy,” Larson joked. “Obviously, I would like to get a full day in today, but I know there’s plenty of opportunity these next handful of days to get a lot of laps. I’ll take rain every day except for qualifying day and the Indy 500, so I don’t really care.”
There are still roughly 30 hours of practice time scheduled before the May 26 race.
Larson, who has tested for McLaren already, is simply excited to get a few days strung together in an Indy car.
“I’m really excited to get this experience underway and get consecutive days in the car,” Larson said. “That’s been the toughest thing so far, that I go months at a time between each time I’m in the car. I’ve got to try to learn quickly here the next few days.”
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