Another great performance at Kansas Speedway comes up short for NASCAR’s Kyle Larson

Kyle Larson’s relationship with Kansas Speedway would fall firmly in the ‘It’s complicated’ category on social media.

Few drivers have ridden the top line around the variable banking at Kansas Speedway with more success than Larson, and that’s precisely the path he took from the 32nd spot at the beginning of Sunday’s Buschy McBusch Race 400 to the front of the field.

Larson, 28, won Stage 2 and led nine different times for a total of 160 laps. His complications with Kansas Speedway seem to always arise in the final laps, though, and so it was again on Sunday.

There was a flurry of four caution flags after Larson’s final green-flag pit stop of the afternoon, and he chose to keep his position rather than return to the pits. Larson started the final two-lap shootout for the checkered flag.

He and Ryan Blaney touched in the penultimate lap, sending Larson into the wall and ending his shot at his first victory at Kansas Speedway.

He eventually finished 19th in the race won by Kyle Busch.

“I had the 2 (Brad Keselowski) behind me, and he didn’t get to my bumper. It allowed the bottom to get the jump on us, so I fell back to third,” Larson said. “I planned on pushing Blaney as hard as I could, but I probably chased him too hard. I got loose and ran us up both into the wall.”

Getting a win on Sunday would have been special for reasons beyond his first trip to victory lane at Kansas Speedway.

Larson is in his first season with Hendrick in the No. 5 Chevrolet. The track also holds special meaning for team owner Rick Hendrick, whose son Ricky won the inaugural trucks race at Kansas in 2001 before he died in a plane crash in 2004.

Larson’s car featured the same blue and white paint scheme Ricky Hendrick drove to victory in 2001.

Larson, who signed with Hendrick in the offseason after serving a suspension for most of 2020 after a remark he made during the broadcast of an iRace held during the pandemic, has been dominant this year on 1.5-mile tracks like Kansas, winning at Las Vegas and finishing second at Atlanta and fourth at Homestead.

But Larson has known his share of heartache at Kansas while driving for Chip Ganassi Racing.

He came to Kansas in 2017 as one of the favorites to advance to the Round of 8 in the playoffs, only to suffer an engine failure, knocking him out of the playoffs And he led 101 laps the spring 2018 race, only to finish third.

Unfortunately for Larson, another great performance at Kansas went for naught.

“My first 11 races (with Hendrick) have been great. I’ve got one win, and I could have four or five,” Larson said. “It’s another day where I led a lot of laps and don’t win. I’ll just have to figure it out.”

If Larson can keep the No. 5 near the front of the field, he’ll find the answers he’s looking for.

Randy Covitz contributed to this story.