It wasn’t long ago that Dale Earnhardt Jr. raised an eyebrow and then some at Kyle Larson. The 2021 Cup Series champ had just swept the Bristol weekend, dominating both the Cup and Xfinity races. Riding high on confidence, Larson went on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast and said what many veterans might think but few say out loud: “In Xfinity, I do get motivated, and this is going to come across like very cocky, but I want to embarrass them, honestly. I want to embarrass NASCAR a little bit.”
Larson wasn’t talking about just winning. He was talking about dropping the hammer on the younger field and making sure they knew what the real standard looked like. Dale Jr. didn’t hold back in his response on the Dale Jr. Download. While he respected the idea of veterans pushing young drivers to raise their game, he didn’t appreciate the phrasing. “The first thing he said, I didn’t like. He said he wanted to embarrass the field, and he wanted to embarrass NASCAR,” Earnhardt said. But he followed up with agreement on the core message.
Larson was, in his words, stepping into the role once held by Mark Martin and later Kyle Busch. He wasn’t just trying to win—he wanted to shove these Xfinity kids out of their comfort zone and show them how far they still had to go. Now, less than a month later, Larson has done just that. But this time, he didn’t just dominate for himself; he did it as a stand-in for one of Dale Jr.’s own rising stars at JR Motorsports. Talk about irony. In his return to the No. 88 car at Texas Motor Speedway, Larson turned his cocky statement into cold, hard proof. And in doing so, he might’ve given Dale Jr. exactly what he asked for, whether he liked it or not.
Kyle Larson puts the Xfinity field in check!
Kyle Larson wasn’t supposed to be in the #88 Chevy at Texas. He got the call midweek to fill in for rookie Connor Zilisch, who injured his back in a wreck at Talladega. JR Motorsports needed someone to keep the No. 88 team strong in owner points. They didn’t just get a stand-in. They got a sledgehammer. After 208 laps, 11 cautions, and two overtimes, Larson rolled into Victory Lane in the Andy’s Frozen Custard 300, taking his second Xfinity win of 2025 and the 17th of his career.
The end was chaos. Larson came in for tires after a caution on lap 188, while six cars stayed out. A pair of wrecks pushed the race into double overtime. On the final restart, Larson lined up next to Sam Mayer, Dale Jr.’s another racer, on the front row. At the start, Taylor Gray gave Mayer a bump that loosened him up. That was all Larson needed as he surged on the outside, cleared Mayer out of Turn 2, and never looked back. Notably, he eventually cleared him by 1.265 seconds.
He did what he had to do to get the win. pic.twitter.com/9Q8yhOUVN9
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) May 3, 2025
After the race, Larson acknowledged the grind it took to get the win. “Yeah, there was a lot of survival, I felt like, throughout that race. Just dodged some wrecks, balance we had to work on quite a bit. So, it was fun. You know, I felt like my car, though, if I could ever get to the lead, I could stretch out,” Larson said. Notably, the Hendrick Motorsports driver led only 32 laps, but one of them was the most important one—the last. “Thanks to JRM for letting me come run this thing here today. You’ll obviously wish Connor were in the car, but it means a lot that they thought of me to call up to run this thing,” he further added.
Notably, this wasn’t just another win for Kyle Larson. It was a statement. He made three starts in the Xfinity race this year and has won twice. And if not for a late-race showdown with Mayer at Homestead, he might’ve bagged three-for-three. Behind him, the field scrambled. Taylor Gray fought his way to second. Riley Herbst took third. Austin Hill and Sam Mayer rounded out the top five. Mayer had the lead in overtime but got shoved around by Gray and couldn’t recover.
Meanwhile, Nick Sanchez was the biggest casualty of the final restart, slamming the wall and falling to 20th. The race wasn’t short on wrecks or drama. Justin Allgaier led 99 laps but crashed late while trying to navigate traffic, ending his day in 35th place. Corey Day, Sammy Smith, Sheldon Creed, and Josh Williams also wrecked out.
Full race results of the 2025 Andy’s Frozen Custard 300:
Fin
Car
Driver
Team
1
88
Kyle Larson (i)
JR Motorsports
2
54
Taylor Gray #
Joe Gibbs Racing
3
19
Riley Herbst (i)
Joe Gibbs Racing
4
21
Austin Hill
Richard Childress Racing
5
41
Sam Mayer
Haas Factory Team
6
25
Harrison Burton
AM Racing
7
2
Jesse Love
Richard Childress Racing
8
39
Ryan Sieg
RSS Racing
9
20
Brandon Jones
Joe Gibbs Racing
10
27
Jeb Burton
Jordan Anderson Racing
11
10
Daniel Dye #
Kaulig Racing
12
42
Anthony Alfredo
Young’s Motorsports
13
18
William Sawalich #
Joe Gibbs Racing
14
4
Parker Retzlaff
Alpha Prime Racing
15
99
Matt DiBenedetto
Viking Motorsports
16
17
Corey Day
Hendrick Motorsports
17
44
Brennan Poole
Alpha Prime Racing
18
8
Sammy Smith
JR Motorsports
19
1
Carson Kvapil #
JR Motorsports
20
48
Nick Sanchez #
Big Machine Racing
21
45
Mason Massey
Alpha Prime Racing
22
28
Kyle Sieg
RSS Racing
23
71
Ryan Ellis
DGM Racing
24
31
Blaine Perkins
Jordan Anderson Racing
25
35
Joey Gase
Joey Gase Motorsports
26
53
Mason Maggio
Joey Gase Motorsports
27
26
Dean Thompson #
Sam Hunt Racing
28
91
Josh Bilicki
DGM Racing
29
07
Nick Leitz
SS-GreenLight Racing
30
14
Garrett Smithley
SS-GreenLight Racing
31
51
Jeremy Clements
Jeremy Clements Racing
32
32
Katherine Legge (i)
Jordan Anderson Racing
33
5
Kris Wright
Our Motorsports
34
70
Leland Honeyman
Cope Family Racing
35
7
Justin Allgaier
JR Motorsports
36
00
Sheldon Creed
Haas Factory Team
37
11
Josh Williams
Kaulig Racing
38
16
Christian Eckes #
Kaulig Racing
The post Smug Kyle Larson Schools Xfinity Kids Days After Arrogant Statements, Returning the Favor to Dale Jr. appeared first on EssentiallySports.
