With Alex Bowman getting hurt in a sprint car this week, Kyle Larson addressed the bad rep that his beloved dirt racing gets. Larson even used his experience at Talladega last week as an example of what can happen in a stock car.
When you start the sprint car versus stock car debate, it can cause all kinds of feelings to come out. There are dirt racers and there are asphalt guys. Some say it takes more courage to drive sprint cars, others say it is the other way.
From Kyle Larson’s perspective, they are both incredibly dangerous. All motorsports are dangerous, in fact. While talking to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports, Larson talked about the close calls he’s had at just superspeedways compared to his sprint car career.
“Obviously there is the risk as well. There’s risk in everything you do. Obviously, you see what happened to us at Talladega last week. There’s more risk there than I think in a sprint car, so I think dirt racing gets a bad rep from time to time. I think people assume the odds are much higher getting hurt in a sprint car, but I would love to see the data to prove that. Because I don’t view it that way.
“We’ve got drivers out with concussions, drivers breaking bones. I’ve broken bones in a Cup car. I’ve narrowly, honestly, escaped death a couple of times in a stock car. So, all racing is dangerous.”
As far as Alex Bowman goes, he relates the situation to his own wreck at Talladega. Clearly, there was concern with how Kyle Larson’s car was hit and how it reacted to the contact from Ryan Preece. Chase Elliott wasn’t happy about it.
Larson himself has had more than one bad wreck at superspeedways.
Kyle Larson details ’emotional’ week after Alex Bowman injury
One thing Kyle Larson was asked about was how emotional he was this week. He was in a traumatic crash that thankfully he was able to leave unharmed. Then his teammate Bowman gets hurt just days later. That’s a whirlwind.
“Yeah I think honestly this week was very emotional I guess. I’m not an emotional person but when you sit back and think about it, I could have been very seriously myself hurt Sunday. Thankfully, we made it through that.”
It was one thing after another. Larson’s car gets taken to R&D and then Bowman flips in the sprint car.
“Then you move forward a couple days and get to race a sprint car and your teammate gets caught up in a crash and fractures a vertebrae,” Larson continued. “Thankfully it wasn’t worse than that because yeah we have seen drivers end up with worse injuries than that. So yeah, it was a pretty emotional I guess week on that side of things.”