Rick Hendrick’s “Glass Half Full Guy” Lowers the Bar on Championship Expectations

The wait is finally coming to an end as the NASCAR playoffs are set to make their grand entrance. After 26 weeks of grueling battles among fellow drivers, the ongoing season is set to enter the final leg before crowning the champion. With the post-season begging on the tracks of Darlington, the drivers are set to put their best foot forward and deliver a brave fight. And among those brave 16 faces also lie 2 faces of Hendrick Motorsports.

For HMS, out of 4, only William Byron and Kyle Larson are slated to compete for the championship. With the fortunes of the team hinged on the performance of these two drivers, the owner of the team, Rick Hendrick, hopes to earn his 15th championship trophy. However, it seems that one of his drivers keeps a low profile, which was perceptible in the interview ahead of the playoffs.

Rick Hendrick’s driver sighs out a lowered expectation for the championship

As NASCAR is set to witness contention among the top 16 drivers of the Cup Series on the track of the Black Lady for the second time in the season, the regular season race on the track was vacillating for Rick Hendrick and his team, Hendrick Motorsports. 

While its prodigy William Byron scored his third victory of the season followed by Chase Elliott in P3 at Daytona, the team’s speedster Kyle Larson encountered a setback after colliding with Ross Chastain. The wreck ended his day, making him finish P20 in the race. Nevertheless, with water under the bridge, both HMS drivers look forward to starting the post-season on a high note.

It appears that one of the HMS drivers prefers to keep his expectations lower when it comes to earning a championship. Kyle Larson, as he said prefers to be ‘realistic’ and set the bars of winning a notch lower. This was apparent in his interview ahead of the playoffs.

When asked about his stance on being eliminated from the Championship 4, HMS speedster Kyle Larson expressed, “I don’t know. I mean it hasn’t been that long since I won a championship. So I have gone one year without winning one, so I don’t necessarily try to think how I felt last year. Last year, felt shi**y because I screwed up the Roval one and took myself out so, that wasn’t fun to deal with.”

“But at the end of the year, we still have three wins and that’s not a bad year. This year we have got three wins as well, one is the All-Stars race, so if I don’t win the championship for sure I am gonna be disappointed. We didn’t achieve the goal but it wasn’t a disappointment from start to finish. We won more than a lot of people did already at this point. We still have ten races, so I am a glass-half-full guy most of the time so I try to set realistic expectations,” Larson asserted.

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Kyle Larson lifts the curtains on the biggest roadblock to winning the championship

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Nevertheless, with the playoffs approaching, the 2021 Cup Series champion took the opportunity to spill the beans on his formidable rival. In his interview with Hendrick Motorsports, Kyle Larson expressed his expectations for the playoff races.

Larson named his teammate William Byron as his biggest roadblock to the championship. He termed Byron “consistent all year long” and “a top-three guy every week”, and said he does “a really good job executing.”

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He also added, “I think the first round are three great tracks for us. Darlington, Kansas, and Bristol are really, really good. In the second round, Texas hopefully will be a good track for us. Talladega is Talladega. And the Roval is a good track for us as well. I think if we can make it to the Round of 8, I like that better than the Round of 12.”

With the playoffs beginning in Darlington, it is to be seen whether Larson is able to rewrite the ending of the race and rise from the last 20th position to take the chequered flag and take himself ahead in the playoff stages.