Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: NASCAR Cup Series points leader Kyle Larson, who is embarking on his attempt to complete the Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 “Double” on Memorial Day Weekend. Larson will qualify for the Indy 500 this weekend and then run the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast.
1. What was one of the first autographs you got as a kid and what do you remember about that moment?
I don’t remember the first specific autograph, but I do remember being a kid going to the dirt races. I had a checkered flag pillowcase, so I would walk through the pit area with my pillow and pillowcase and get all the drivers to autograph it.
I’m sure you have probably hundreds of autographs from when you were a kid at dirt tracks.
Oh yeah. My mom was definitely the type of person who would shove me over to people to get their autograph. It’s cool looking back at it now. And I had a couple pillows, but I slept with those until I moved out. (Laughs.)
2. What is the most miserable you’ve ever been inside a race car?
The Coke 600, I don’t remember what year it was, but I had a stomach bug going on — and yeah, we had to relieve some pressure. It felt good, but it was miserable. Very miserable. (Laughs.)
How did you get out of the car without anybody seeing that had happened?
I had a white suit, and I didn’t know what it looked like back there. (Laughs.) I just lowered it and and ran over to my golf cart and my bus driver and hauled a— in the motorhome. It was bad.
3. Outside of racing, what is your most recent memory of something you got way too competitive about?
I saw Ross (Chastain’s) answer on this (in the 12 Questions last week), and I will agree: Probably the DAP (Driver Ambassador Program, which awards points to drivers for making media appearances and participating in other promotional activities) stuff. I was not very competitive at all with it until recently; I did a couple longer events and crept up the leaderboard. Now I’m like, “Oh man, we need to do some more.” It’s a good incentive thing NASCAR has come up with, and it’s definitely gotten the top guys more involved in trying to promote the sport.
How close to the top are you right now?
I’m fifth. I don’t even see what (Joey) Logano does, but he’s checked out. And Chase (Elliott) too. Like, I don’t even know where these guys come from, but they’re ahead of me. Aside from Joey, we’re all pretty close; second through seventh is close.
4. What do people get wrong about you?
People back in the day used to get wrong that I didn’t care about NASCAR. I still think people think, “Oh, I’m just doing this for the money and if I had a choice, I’d be racing sprint cars all the time.” That really bugs me, because it isn’t about the money. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t love it, you know? So I do love this. I wish fans would realize that. And I feel like they have over time, but not all of them, and you’re never going to convince everybody.
“I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t love it, you know?” Kyle Larson says of NASCAR. “… I wish fans would realize that. And I feel like they have over time.” (Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
5. What kind of Uber passenger are you and how much do you care about your Uber rating?
I prefer to just be a quiet-in-the-back-seat Uber passenger, and I would prefer the driver not talk to me. (Laughs.) That’s probably the introvert in me. I just don’t really like to talk.
I don’t care about my rating — other than if I’m the one ordering the Uber and there are a bunch of us in there, I want them to be respectful because it comes back on me. I think my rating is 4.8 or 4.9, somewhere around there.
6. This is a wild-card question related to a current topic with you. Last year, you said you’re a better all-around driver than (Formula One’s) Max Verstappen, which actually seems obvious for those of us who have seen the diversity of your racing success. But then every time you crash or make a mistake, that gets blown up into this sarcastic “greatest driver in the world!” reaction from your detractors. What would you say to those people who love to see you mess up?
People act like I’m the one who said I am the greatest race car driver in the world. I never said that. I just said I’m a better all-around driver than Max Verstappen. And they took that as I said, “I’m the greatest in the world.” Because for some reason, Max is considered the greatest in the world. So it’s funny. I mean, I expect it when I have a crash or something. But it’s fine.
7. This is my 16th year doing the 12 Questions, so I’m going back to an earlier question. I picked one from 2014, which was our first 12 Questions interview: Fans often come up to you and bring up moments from your career; what moment do they mention to you the most at the time? At the time, you said the 2013 Daytona Xfinity Series crash. But a lot has happened since then, so what do they bring up now?
Well, that never gets brought up anymore, which is nice, because it got brought up all the time. What gets brought up the most now? Everybody who comes up to me says they’re going to the Indy 500, so I would say that, just because I hear it all the time. Like every fan who comes up to me is like, “Oh, we were there last year and we’re going again this year” or stuff like that. I mean, there are 350,000 people there, so I guess it’s not surprising they are going to be there. (Laughs.)
8. Other than one of your teammates, name a driver who you’d be one of the first people to congratulate them in victory lane if they won the race.
I try to do my best to get to victory lane whenever somebody new wins. When Josh Berry won (at Las Vegas), I went to victory lane. So probably any of them at this point, if I like you. But probably Todd Gilliland. He’s just a super good guy and he’s really talented. He’s on a team that is not top-tier level like Hendrick or Gibbs or Penske, so if he won, that would be really cool.
9. How much do you use AI technology, whether for your job or your daily life?
So I didn’t even know what ChatGPT was until December, and I downloaded it, and we were on vacation. I stayed back at the house and was messing around with it, and I realized, “Damn, this app is sick!” You could do everything. You can get answers to things, you can craft up responses to send to people that sound professional. You can do anything, right? I could design a T-shirt with it. And so honestly, right now, I literally use it for everything. It’s awesome.
You might be the first person this year to openly say you embrace it in these interviews. Most of the guys have said they used it a couple times or haven’t used it at all, but you’re all-in.
Yeah, I’m all in. It’s cool. I’m not really an email person, but I’ve definitely done it and been like, “OK, that’s too professional. Dumb it down a little bit.” I like that you can have a conversation and you don’t feel like you’re having a conversation with a robot. You feel like you’re having a conversation with a person.
10. What is a time in your life you felt was really challenging, but you feel proud of the way you responded to it?
Probably the 2020 stuff (when Larson was fired from Chip Ganassi Racing for uttering a racial slur during an online racing livestream). Obviously, a lot happened in a quick time — (a position) that I put myself in. But it was trusting the people I had around me and trusting in the path we were trying to put ourselves on to get either back to the Cup Series or just in a good spot in life and racing. It was staying committed to that and doing everything I felt like I wanted to do and needed to do and ultimately got back to the Cup Series.
11. What needs to happen in NASCAR to take the sport to the next level of popularity?
When you look at F1, they’re much larger than us, but they also have way more money than the teams and NASCAR has to work with. If you could magically have billions more dollars to spend in promotion and fixing up facilities and things like that, there’s no question we would be way bigger than we are now. But we’re working in a budget that’s much different than them. If we had unlimited money, we could do really whatever we wanted.
12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next interview. The last one was with Ross Chastain and his question is: What is your best Chip Ganassi story?
He’s always had diets and things like that. I remember we would go to dinner, and I think he was serious, but he was telling people, “I’m a vegetarian right now, I don’t eat meat.” So you would order your steak and you’re eating it and get down to the end of it and you might have a little bit left on there. And he doesn’t even ask — he reaches over with his fork, grabs it, eats it. I’m like, “Dude, I thought you were vegetarian, for one, and two, you didn’t even ask if I was done!” (Laughs.)
Like straight off your plate?
Yeah! And he doesn’t ask either. He doesn’t look at you, like, “Haha, gotcha.” He’s just like, “No, that’s mine.”
Well, speaking of Ganassi, the next interview I’m doing is with Alex Palou (the IndyCar points leader who drives for Ganassi). Do you have a question I can ask him?
Is he ever going to lose a race? Well, ask him that too, but I’d like to ask him something better. So I’ll think of one.
(Top photo of Kyle Larson after Sunday’s Cup Series win at Kansas Speedway: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)