HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — Kyle Larson is tired of his weekends at Homestead-Miami Speedway ending in disappointment.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver has won a NACAR Cup Series race and Xfinity Series race in his career at the South Florida track, but he mostly just remembers the heartbreaks there.
Last year it was a 13th-place finish in the playoff race. On Saturday, it was a late collapse in the Xfinity Series that cost him a chance of sweeping the weekend.
Larson, who is competing in the Cup, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck races at the 1.5-mile track in Homestead, was hoping to join Kyle Busch as the only drivers to sweep a triple-header weekend — Busch did it at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2010 and 2017.
Larson got off to a good start, rallying from a late-race spinout to pull off a comeback win in the Truck Series on Friday.
In the Xfinity Series on Saturday, it looked like he was on his way to a dominant win. He held a 16-second lead in the race before a late spin by Taylor Gray caused a caution with seven laps to go. On the overtime restart, Sam Mayer's No. 41 Ford made contact with the back of Larson's No. 17 Chevrolet, costing him the win.
“Bummer, again, to have another Homestead race play out that way," Larson said. "I can't go when my rear tires are off the ground. So I know it looks like I choked another one away, but I did everything I thought I could (to win). The 41 just lagged back and slammed me.”
Larson led 132 of 201 laps and finished fourth. It was another disappointing end at one of his best tracks.
Larson has five top-five finishes in 11 Cup starts in his career at Homestead — two driving the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. He’s led the most laps (626) of any active driver, and his 12 stage wins in the Next Gen car is a series best. No other driver has more than five stage wins.
Larson finished fourth in 2021 and won the race in 2022 but left frustrated the past two years.
He was out of the race at Lap 214 in 2023 after slamming into the pit road barriers trying to overtake Ryan Blaney for the lead. Last year, Larson’s winning chance ended when he spun while racing Blaney for the lead with under 20 laps to go.
“I feel like every time I go there (to Homestead) you leave disappointed because you feel like you have the best car or truck, and things don’t work out,” Larson said this week. “Whether it’s mistakes on my end or ill-timed cautions combined with a hiccup on pit road, or whatever late in the race, and you end up losing.
“Literally all but maybe two or three races at Homestead I felt like we had the best car, best chance of winning, and we don’t have the wins to show for it.”
NASCAR sent out a clarification to race teams in all three national series on pitting in another team’s pit stall after Christopher Bell stopped in the pit stall of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe to have a loose left wheel tightened during the Pennzoil 400 in Las Vegas last weekend.
If a vehicle gets service in another team’s pit stall to fix a safety issue, it will receive a flag status penalty, NASCAR said, and they’ll either have to restart at the tail of the field or receive a pass-through for pitting outside the assigned pit box.
The left-front wheel was loose on Bell’s No. 20 Toyota when he was exiting pit road last week. If the wheel came off after he exited pit road, Bell would have been penalized two laps and had two pit crew members suspended for the next two races. He stopped in Briscoe’s stall for service instead, was dinged for pitting outside the box and only had to restart at the back of the field. He finished 12th.
NASCAR listed tightening loose wheels, removing a fuel can or a wedge wrench as examples of safety issues.
Joe Gibbs Racing announced Tuesday that the organization signed an agreement with Progressive Insurance to sponsor Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota Camry in 18 NASCAR Cup Series races this season, starting with Sunday’s race in Homestead.
Progressive’s name and blue branding will be displayed on Hamlin’s car and race suit, and his crew will wear Progressive branded gear.
“It’s good for them (Joe Gibbs Racing) to have an anchor partner,” Hamlin said, “and certainly for my fans’ sake, they’re going to be able to identify me week-to-week. And I think that’s something that certainly is very important. So feeling out those 18 races is going to be a big deal for myself and Gibbs throughout the year.”
Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman won the pole for Sunday’s race while driving a No. 48 Toyota that promotes the 3-on-3 women’s basketball league Unrivaled, which just wrapped up its inaugural season in Miami.
It’s the sixth career pole for Bowman, who was followed by Josh Berry — the winner at Las Vegas last weekend — Noah Gragson, Briscoe and William Byron.
Larson (+375) is the BetMGM Sportsbook favorite, followed by Tyler Reddick (+600). Larson’s 1,286 total miles led on the 1.5-mile tracks is almost double that of any other driver. Bell is second with 614. ... Reddick won the race last year, while Hamlin leads active drivers with three wins (2009, ’13, ’20).
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Kyle Larson drives during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, March 16, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
SUN VALLEY, Idaho (AP) — American downhill racer Breezy Johnson was training in Switzerland last offseason when another skier swerved into her path near the base of the lift and ran over her calf.
The person's razor-sharp ski edge sliced through Johnson's pants and through her race suit. No severe laceration, though, only a thin bruise across her leg, because Johnson happened to be wearing a cut-resistant undergarment.
Many racers at World Cup finals are donning an extra layer of protection under their race suits to guard against the dangers of sharp skis, especially runaway ones after crashes. For now, it's optional clothing. Next season, cut-resistant pants will be a mandatory requirement by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation.
The decision comes in the wake of several high-profile incidents on the World Cup scene of racers suffering cuts after crashes. Like Norwegian standout Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who had surgery last season for a severe laceration and nerve damage in his right calf following a spill.
“Every step toward improving safety is important. We are constantly working to make ski racing as safe as possible, but it’s never easy — this sport is inherently high-risk,” said Markus Waldner, the chief race director for the men's World Cup. “This season, we unfortunately saw many injuries, and that’s difficult for everyone.
"Beyond the personal impact on the athletes, it also affects the image of the sport. We don’t want people to associate ski racing with danger — we want it to be seen as a thrilling, inspiring sport that motivates the next generation.”
Currently, there are a handful of companies who are making cut-resistant undergarments that meet the required safety specifications set forth by FIS, the sport's governing body. One of those is Vix Protection, which was started in the garage of 27-year-old founder Victor Wiacek.
He knows all too well the dangers of careening skis following his crash six years ago while racing for Babson College in Massachusetts. Wiacek has a scar that goes from the front of his left thigh to the back of his hamstring. It required more than 220 stitches to close.
“The only reason I survived, frankly, was because there was someone on the side of the hill within 30 feet of me who had medical training as well as a tourniquet on them,” Wiacek said. “They slapped (the tourniquet) on my leg within two minutes. Despite that, I still lost half the blood in my body.
"I was still in the hospital bed, full of painkillers, when something in my brain decided I need to do this. I need to work on this. It seems like something that’s easy enough to eliminate.”
Wiacek is constantly tinkering with fabrics and materials for his cut-resistant gear, with his latest development an ultra high molecular weight polyethylene-based textile. He's also created a machine that tests against ski lacerations specific to the parameters of ski racing. A business major with an engineer’s curiosity, his prototype came out in late 2019.
At first, it was just for family and friends. Since then, it’s taken off and he's helped create testing standards to measure the degree of cut protection for undergarments.
“Skis are only getting sharper, and this injury is only getting more common,” Wiacek said. “I believe it’s the only injury in our already ridiculously dangerous sport that we can not only mitigate but eliminate. That’s literally the mission in my life right now.”
To demonstrate how well his product works, Wiacek shows up at ski racing events all over the globe with a machete and a mannequin outfitted in Vix gear. He will run the sharpened blade across the product over and over.
Wiacek already has some of the top ski racers using his product. At this week's World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Wiacek estimated a large portion of the racers are wearing his cut-resistant undergarments under their race suits.
That included Lindsey Vonn and Johnson, who swears by the product after her close call over the summer.
“The ski cut through my pants, cut through my suit and tried to cut through the (cut-resistant) material,” Johnson explained. “But it didn’t. I wasn’t cut. I just had a very distinct bruise across my calf.
“In my opinion, we need to have onesies.”
That very well might have helped Mikaela Shiffrin when she was pierced — she's not sure by what — after falling in a giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont, on Nov. 30. A top layer or a onesie might have offered an added layer of protection. But she said there was no way of really knowing since this was more of a puncture wound.
“It’s cut proof, but not necessarily puncture proof?" Shiffrin said. "Maybe we need to have some kind of a padding system? Long story short, I’m not sure.”
Kilde is all for implementing safety protocols after his severe laceration in January 2024. He was cut near top of his boot.
“It was almost down to the bone. So a lot of forces in there,” explained Kilde, who also injured his shoulder in the crash and has been sidelined all season. “It (cut-resistant gear) would’ve helped my situation a lot.”
Six-time Olympic medalist Bode Miller figured that sort of cut-resistant clothing would've saved him from some slice wounds over his career. He once crashed in the super-G at the 2015 world championships in Beaver Creek, Colorado, suffering a cut that required surgery to fix a torn right hamstring tendon.
“It’s overdue that we get more innovation,” Miller said. “I’ve seen people get cut training, screwing around or skiing on their own. It's always dangerous when you're dealing with four sharp edges.”
For Austrian ski racer Cornelia Huetter, wearing cut-resistant undergarments gives her peace of mind.
“But it’s safety,” Huetter said, “that I’m hoping I don’t need.”
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
Victor Wiacek, the founder of Vix Protection, a cut-resistant undergarment worn by ski racers, attends the World Cup Finals, Sunday, March 23, 2025, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (AP Photo by Robert F. Bukaty)
FILE - Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde falls during an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill race, in Wengen, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati, file)
United States' Breezy Johnson skis during a women's downhill training run at the World Cup Finals, Friday, March 21, 2025, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (AP Photo/John Locher)
United States' Breezy Johnson skis during a women's downhill training run at the World Cup Finals, Friday, March 21, 2025, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
