When Kyle Larson was announced as an Arrow McLaren driver for the 2024 Indianapolis 500, many thought that it was an obvious pairing.
Larson has made a habit of driving all manner of cars throughout his career, often competing in dirt track events alongside his NASCAR Cup Series career, and has been labeled as someone that can drive anything with four wheels.
The 30-year-old was present at Indianapolis on Thursday to witness some Indy 500 practice first hand and make connections with those who he will be sharing a paddock with next season.
He was joined by NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon at the speedway, who is now vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, the team Larson has driven with for the past three seasons.
While talking with media, Larson described how he has the full support of Hendrick, and that he is actually living out a dream that Gordon had for much of his life.
“It’s obviously very exciting,” said Larson. “It’s been something that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. I wanted to be patient and kind of wait for the timing to feel right. Now it feels right.
“Having Hendrick Motorsports be extremely supportive of it, supporting the efforts with Arrow McLaren, it’s something that I’m extremely excited about.
“To have Rick [Hendrick] and Jeff Gordon involved. Jeff kind of told me that I get to live out a dream of his. That’s really special also to me.
“I’ve obviously come here a lot in a stock car. I lived in the area for a couple years. So this place for a long time felt like home or a second home to me. In my opinion, this is the biggest race in the world, so you want to be a part of the big ones. Hopefully someday be a winner of a big event.
“Happy to be here today. Look forward to kind of taking in as much knowledge as I possibly can in a single day, just trying to better prepare myself for whenever I get behind the wheel.”
Gordon was visibly happy to be at IMS again, a track he has raced at many times in stock cars. Although this time he was here in a different capacity.
He is taking his new role seriously, and intends to help Larson in any way he can, but there is still a part of him that wishes he could have been the one piloting an IndyCar around the speedway when he was racing.
“Like Kyle said, it’s true, I did say to him he’s going to be able to live out a dream of mine,” said Gordon. “I go back to the mid to late ’80s when I was living here in Indiana, raced all around here.
“Every race car driver’s dream, if you race around Indianapolis, is to get here, to compete at this facility. Certainly it was on my radar. But NASCAR came calling.
“Once that happened, I kind of shifted my focus to that. I don’t know if really the right opportunity or it ever became serious enough after that to become a reality.
“So to me, this is equally as exciting because, one, I sure as heck right now don’t want to drive into turn one at 238 miles per hour, whatever they’re running (smiling), but Kyle does. Kyle is capable of it.
“Super excited. Excited for Kyle. When he has the equipment and the resources, the people surrounding him, he has the ability to go do extraordinary things. We’ve seen him do it in other cars. I have no doubt that he’ll be able to do that in the Indy 500 next year, as well.”
Larson plans to run the Indianapolis 500 in addition to a full season NASCAR schedule, meaning he will be the first driver to attempt the Indy 500 / Coca Cola 600 double since 2014.
Both races are tentatively scheduled for May 26, 2024, giving Larson plenty of time to prepare and plan the logistics of running two races in two different types of cars back to back.
