NASCAR Cup Series

Kyle Larson doesn't recall 'One Hot Night' because he wasn't born yet

Published May. 20, 2017 3:32 p.m. ET

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Tim Durr

In his fourth full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, Kyle Larson looks like a veteran with one win and the points lead through 11 races, but he's still quite a fresh face in the sport.

That was made evident on Friday night after Larson earned the pole for the NASCAR All-Star Race (6 p.m. ET on FS1), which is celebrating the 25th anniversary of "One Hot Night".

“I will be 25 in a couple of months," Larson said when asked about "One Hot Night" and how Kyle Petty nearly won in the No. 42 car. "It would be cool to get the No. 42 in Victory Lane every week. I don’t think it completes the circle, but I just think it would be cool to get to victory lane here for a big race. We were close last year. Joey (Logano) was able to get by me late and yeah that was a heartbreaker, but hopefully, we can get some revenge (Saturday) night.”

NASCAR hopes to rekindle the magic of the sport's first speedway race under the lights where Davey Allison and Kyle Petty crashed across the finish line.

A driver like Larson definitely promises to deliver some excitement, which started Friday night when Larson entered pit road going in excess of 150 mph for his full speed pit stop that earned him the pole position.

“It’s pretty intense for sure. It’s not as crazy intense as I thought it would be, but so much fun to get to come down pit road as fast as you can there," Larson said. "My goal going into it was just to not make any mistakes and you know we would end up in the top eight. The first round, I definitely under drove coming into the pit stall. I was loose in (Turns) 3 and 4, so my lap was a little slow, but then my pit crew made up some time for us and allowed us to barely make it into the final round there.

"I knew what I could do to go better and picked up a little speed on my initial lap. Came down pit road a lot harder, still over slowed probably a little bit to my pit stall, but made it to it which was good, I didn’t slide through it. I just wanted to be mistake free and gain a couple more positions. Obviously, we caught a huge break with the Kurt (Busch) penalty or whatever it was to get on the pole. My first attempt at it. It’s pretty cool. I had fun.”

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