Kyle Larson dominated his way to victory during last Sunday's Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It marked Larson's third NASCAR Cup Series win of the year, and it seemingly washed off the stink caused by last week's chaotic run-in with Bubba Wallace at Las Vegas. While Larson seeing the checkered flag at Homestead was impressive in its own right, it was his post-win burnout that really got the attention of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"A+ burnout. Whole length of the front straightaway," Dale Jr. said from the NBC broadcast booth.
You can't get better than an A+, and as you can see from the below clip, Larson's smoke-billowing celebration was about as epic as it gets. Is this a contender for Best NASCAR Burnout of the Year? I'll let you be the judge.
WHAT A BURNOUT!
Win No. 19 for @KyleLarsonRacin! pic.twitter.com/NBAx21qGdW
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 23, 2022
Larson's Homestead win provided a much-needed confidence boost for the driver of the No. 5 Chevy for Hendrick Motorsports. During the post-race interview, he expressed just how proud he was with his and his team's performance.
"Definitely the best run we've had all year long," Larson said. "We've been capable of it I feel like many weekends, we just haven't quite put it all together. (Crew chief) Cliff (Daniels) gave a great speech this morning and got us all ready to go and focused and did my best to keep it out of the wall. I got in the wall a few times but I could still make speed doing that. Amazing race car. I knew that that last run was going to be short enough where I was going to be in some sort of trouble there, but thankfully AJ [Allmendinger] and Ross [Chastain] were racing hard behind me."
Unfortunately, a driver's championship repeat is out of the question for Larson, as he was eliminated from the playoffs after the Talladega race. Still, the 2021 Cup Series champ is competing for an owner's championship for Hendrick Motorsports, and that remains his focus heading into the final two races at Martinsville and Phoenix.
"We're still technically not out of it," Larson said. "I can't win the championship, but it means more to me to win it as a team. We're going to go to Phoenix and try to get another championship."