Tuesday, Dec 05

Could Kyle Larson Win From the Pole at Richmond?

Saturday, Apr 26 3991

Kyle Larson will be starting on the pole for this evening's running of the Toyota Owners 400 at the Richmond International Raceway. Larson, 21, has never led the field to green in his 12 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts preceding Saturday's event.

The Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates driver currently sits 15th in points after eight races this season. Even though Larson has a pair of top-five finishes to start off his first full-time season in NASCAR's premier division, he has three finishes of 20th or worse. However, Larson has excelled at tracks which he has driven at before, and Richmond is one of those venues.

In three Nationwide Series races at Richmond, Larson has an average finishing position of 8.7. He also recorded a top-five finish in his lone K&N Pro Series East race at Richmond in 2012. Now, he is on NASCAR's biggest stage, and the pressure is starting to lighten up now that people understand he is capable of racing for wins.

Larson's pole award will not count as an entry into the Sprint Showdown at Daytona to begin the 2015 season next February. However, it will help him earn experience at the front of the pack - racing against some of the sport's top drivers. He already scored his first career Nationwide Series pole award with Turner Scott Motorsports at Bristol a few weeks ago, but starting up front in the Cup Series will put the Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender's integrity to the test.

His Ganassi teammate, Jamie McMurray, finished fourth in the last race at Richmond back in September after leading a handful of laps. Besides holding the top speed in practice on Friday morning, Larson had the 10th fastest average of 29 cars that ran 10 consecutive laps during that first practice.

Joseph Wolkin

Joseph Wolkin (@JosephNASCAR) is a sophomore at the Queensborough Community College as an English major. He’s a native of Whitestone, NY, just outside of New York City, and has been attempting to find roots of motorsports within his area since 2004. He started out as just a fan, but over the course of his high school career, he ended up falling in love with writing.

Joseph has been covering NASCAR since 2011 for several different websites. Recently, he was named as one of two lead NASCAR columnists for Rant Sports after working for the site for over one year. Working with Rant Sports for approximately 14 months, Joseph has covered New York City area sports teams such as the New York Giants, New York Mets, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and more.

Through his passion is for NASCAR, Joseph has adapted to changing times and realizes that he has numerous opportunities in the journalism work. As one of the top young sports writers, his goal is to become one of the top motorsports writers of this new digital media era. However, he also believes that it’s important to stick to the traditional routers of print publications after seeing his high school newspaper dissolve due to a lack of funding.

Currently, besides his duties with Speedway Digest, Joseph is a columnist with Fronstretch.com, Motorsport.com and has a weekly article in NASCAR Pole Position's digital version - ROAR! Weekly Race Preview Magazine. 

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