Kyle Larson won last Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen race at Watkins Glen, but not without some conflict.
With roughly five laps remaining, Chase Elliott was in the lead when the race restarted. Larson made contact with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate’s car in the first turn, which helped him to emerge victorious but pushed Elliott back to a fourth-place finish.
Elliott was not happy with what happened, and he, Larson and the entire Hendrick Motorsports race team had a conversation on Monday to go over what transpired.
Larson admitted he wishes things didn’t happen as they did.
“I wish things would have I guess played out differently and Monday would have been a lot better for me,” Larson said on Tuesday, via NASCAR.com. “It was productive. In the end, it was positive to have that talk. I’m ready to just move on from it and look forward to Daytona and on into the playoffs.”
Larson added that “we all like to win” but that “in the end, I probably should have a little more respect next time.”
He also said that Elliott did most of the talking in the meeting, which Elliott said he felt was a productive session.
“I thought it went great,” Elliott said Wednesday. “We talked through our race weekend, where I felt we needed to be better as the No. 9 team and how we want to improve going back [to Watkins Glen] next year and the Roval as it pertains to 2022. We still have more road racing ahead and I think we could be better.”
Despite the setback at Watkins Glen, Elliott remains in first place in the NASCAR Cup Series standings, 134 points ahead of Larson, who is in second.
The Cup Series regular season concludes this weekend at the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona.