NASCAR News: Kyle Larson Responds to Ryan Blaney’s Scathing Comments Following Brickyard 400 Drama

Kyle Larson won the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis, sparking a heated dispute among top candidates that gradually spread across social media. The race, which was marred by an incident during the restart in the final stage, ended with Larson at the front of the pack, later replying to scathing comments from fellow competitor Ryan Blaney.

Blaney, who was racing second before the craziness of the restart, openly attacked the race organizers’ decision to continue under green despite issues presented by Brad Keselowski’s low fuel issue, which prompted him to pull out exactly as the race resumed. Blaney believed Larson was improperly awarded the race, referring to him as NASCAR’s “f****** golden boy.” His fury was clear in his voice as he talked on his team radio:

“There’s no way they could have let that go green. That is ludicrous. They basically gave it to him. It’s f*cking over; I’m on top. I’m not going win from the top. Gave it to the f*cking golden boy. “Son of a b*tch.”

The sequence of events that unfolded towards the end of the race was indeed dramatic. An incident involving Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin caused the overtime. Keselowski’s gamble to stretch his fuel added to the confusion, ultimately disrupting the leading drivers at this critical juncture of the race. This disruption allowed Larson, who had been third, to push through.

In response to Blaney’s accusations, NASCAR’s Executive Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, defended the actions taken by his officials.

“So we had already gone through the choose process, so we were coming to green when the 6 pulled off, which allowed the 5 to pull up, which transferred the control vehicle to the 12. And this all happens fairly quick there. So hindsight, I think we still let it play out the way it did. We’ll discuss that more. If we had thrown the caution hypothetically we wouldn’t have gone through a choose process again. The 12 would have been the control vehicle, but he wouldn’t have got lane choice. That’s the way the rule’s written.”