Kyle Larson had nobody to blame but himself for his disappointing day at Atlanta on Sunday.
The reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion did at least acknowledge that after he ended his own race at EchoPark Speedway, having brought out a caution to end Stage 2.
Larson had been running the top line on the final lap of the stage when he cleared Tyler Reddick to his inside, immediately cutting down the track only to meet with the nose of Shane van Gisbergen's No. 97, who had powered through below the No. 45 with a great run.
SVG took a wild ride across the infield grass at top speed as a result of the contact, but avoided the wall – unlike Larson, whose day was done.
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Larson: I need to listen more
"All my fault, obviously," the Hendrick Motorsports star said after being released from the infield care center. "In my brain, you know, I knew the 45 had been inside of me, and then I got clear of him, and I wanted to just cut distance, and I guess the 97 was just out of my corner mirror.
"So, yeah, I hung a left, and then yeah, I ran right into him. Yeah, for, I guess my comment of 'I didn't know that was three-wide', which I never was, I just didn't realize that the 97 had gotten inside the 45. So, just all my fault. Hate it. Yeah, need to listen more, I guess, and not just react off of what I feel sometimes."
Larson currently sits below the points cutoff line for the Chase, but waved away any concerns about his position in the standings – pointing out that just two of 26 regular season races have been run.
“There’s still 20 (24) races or whatever left, so yeah, obviously you don’t want to compound it, but everybody wants to make a big deal out about points and stuff, points racing, points racing, but it’s still so early. To me, I don’t really think it changes a lot.”
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