Kyle Larson on ‘having a blast’ in Chicago Xfinity race

Kyle Larson describes his day in the Xfinity Series battling Shane van Gisbergen and how it prepared him for Sunday's Cup race.

Transcript

00:00It's so cool to watch you guys at the beginning. Then both of you working through traffic.

00:03Ultimately, you come home third. How would you summarize your day, though? How much fun

00:07did you have out there? Yeah, I was having a blast there early. He was obviously way

00:10faster than me and was just I think he was having fun, just playing with me. So it was

00:16just I just you know, I wanted to use this race to learn and without I wanted to take

00:22the first opportunity I got to battle him. Just, you know, we were gonna give each other

00:26space early on, but you just never know when the race plays out if I'm gonna have a chance

00:30to battle him and learn race craft stuff. So that was big on my agenda, and I feel like

00:35I learned quite a bit, you know, battling him and you're creating different angles and

00:39all that. So, yeah, I think today was a success. Obviously would like to win, but our car just

00:44wasn't quite as good as his. He could get his exit like turn five just way smoother

00:50than me. I just was bouncing so aggressively I couldn't couldn't accelerate. And then

00:55same through, like, turn nine. I just couldn't carry the speed that he could. If I carry

01:00just a little bit too much, which was never even close to how much speed he was turning

01:04or pulling through there, I would just sheer and get loose. So that kind of carries all

01:08the way to 11. So, um, yeah, it was a fun, fun race. So even you through the restarts

01:14in the beginning of the third stage was cool. So thanks to Hendrick Motorsports and under

01:18cars dot com for Let me come play in the experience series this year. I had a good

01:23time in the two races got to run, so definitely benefited me, and I feel like it helps for

01:28the cup stuff. You said it helps. You said you learned a lot. Enough lessons to pull

01:33off a win tomorrow, especially starting from the pole. I think my car is much more competitive,

01:40competitively matched to his car for tomorrow. So in others, too, I think my car, my car

01:46is really good. I feel like in five and in nine all the way to 11. So that's that gives

01:50me confidence for tomorrow. So, um, but you know, it's a cup races are really, really

01:56hard. There's way more good cars, way more good drivers. Um, a lot of drivers with great

02:02race craft. So it's tough, but I like my chances for tomorrow. At least have another good run

02:08and we'll see.