Kyle Larson Appreciation Thread

StandOnIt said:
Bud I went three pages with a poster here arguing about his disdain because Larson raced other events besides Nascar. I had a ball. There are a couple here that way. I think both of them are rice burner fans, that might have something to do with it.
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Again, and this ties into one of your posts on the thread about time limits: there are NASCAR fans and then there are fans of the drivers and/or motorsports in general. If you are a NASCAR fan and you would prefer that Kyle Larson would race only in NASCAR, I get it. That makes sense. What does not make sense - at all - is stating that you are a fan of Kyle Larson and then complaining because you only want him to race in NASCAR.

Can you buy a chihuahua as a duck hunting dog? Sure. There aren't any laws that make it illegal to complain that the chihuahua you bought is bad at retrieving ducks when you go hunting. Is rational is that a decision to make? Not very, so long as you spent about 10 seconds thinking about it. Does it seem like you might be a little entitled if you think a chihuahua should be capable of doing this for you? That's a kind way of describing it!
 
virtualbalboa said:
There being "no rules for fandom" doesn't make fans any less entitled when they engage in complaining about the object of their fandom's interest in things they as fans don't care for. I get it, no one wants to be called entitled for having an opinion like "Kyle Larson should only race in NASCAR, the series I exclusively watch and became familiar with him racing in." Too bad! You are in fact acting in an entitled fashion!
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I don't even understand what you are trying to assert here.
 
jaqua19 said:
I don't even understand what you are trying to assert here.
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If you agree with me that Kyle Larson is not wronging you as a fan for racing in the Indy 500, then there's nothing to disagree with me on.
 
virtualbalboa said:
Again, and this ties into one of your posts on the thread about time limits: there are NASCAR fans and then there are fans of the drivers and/or motorsports in general. If you are a NASCAR fan and you would prefer that Kyle Larson would race only in NASCAR, I get it. That makes sense. What does not make sense - at all - is stating that you are a fan of Kyle Larson and then complaining because you only want him to race in NASCAR.

Can you buy a chihuahua as a duck hunting dog? Sure. There aren't any laws that make it illegal to complain that the chihuahua you bought is bad at retrieving ducks when you go hunting. Is rational is that a decision to make? Not very, so long as you spent about 10 seconds thinking about it. Does it seem like you might be a little entitled if you think a chihuahua should be capable of doing this for you? That's a kind way of describing it!
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This is semantics, imo. NASCAR is the only racing I follow religiously. I don't care that Larson races outside of NASCAR. I don't care if he didn't. It doesn't effect him being the driver I support on Sunday. If I had as eclectic of a motorsports palate as others, I would be interested outside of little tune ins here and there.

But as a NASCAR fan primarily, even if I WANTED him to only race in NASCAR, that wouldn't make me anyless of a fan of Kyle Larson.

The fans you reference are fans of "Kyle Larson the NASCAR driver".

They don't differ from me in anyway other than having issues with him racing outside of NASCAR.

Are they less of a fan than I am, just because I, as a "NASCAR driver Kyle Larson" fan don't have issue with what he does outside of NASCAR?
 
virtualbalboa said:
If you agree with me that Kyle Larson is not wronging you as a fan for racing in the Indy 500, then there's nothing to disagree with me on.
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I don't disagree at all.

I just don't think people who feel that way should be identified as not real Kyle Larson fans. Being a fan of the NASCAR driver Larson still makes them a fan of his.
 
jaqua19 said:
But as a NASCAR fan primarily, even if I WANTED him to only race in NASCAR, that wouldn't make me anyless of a fan of Kyle Larson.
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It isn't a question of semantics at all. If you are a fan of NASCAR and Kyle Larson only in the context of NASCAR, you aren't a fan of Kyle Larson! You're a fan of NASCAR! The majority of races he'll enter this year will be non-NASCAR races. That variety in competition is directly a result of who he is. This doesn't mean being a NASCAR fan is bad. I am not arguing that nor will I because there is nothing fundamentally wrong with being a NASCAR fan. But you aren't really a Kyle Larson fan because being a fan of Kyle Larson would mean being a fan of the things Kyle Larson does.

You know what someone who says "I'm a football fan who only watches the Raiders" is? A Raiders fan.

You know what someone who says "I like eating breakfast cereal but only Cinnamon Toast Crunch" is? A Cinnamon Toast Crunch fan. It's OK to be that.
 
virtualbalboa said:
It isn't a question of semantics at all. If you are a fan of NASCAR and Kyle Larson only in the context of NASCAR, you aren't a fan of Kyle Larson! You're a fan of NASCAR! The majority of races he'll enter this year will be non-NASCAR races. That variety in competition is directly a result of who he is. This doesn't mean being a NASCAR fan is bad. I am not arguing that nor will I because there is nothing fundamentally wrong with being a NASCAR fan. But you aren't really a Kyle Larson fan because being a fan of Kyle Larson would mean being a fan of the things Kyle Larson does.

You know what someone who says "I'm a football fan who only watches the Raiders" is? A Raiders fan.

You know what someone who says "I like eating breakfast cereal but only Cinnamon Toast Crunch" is? A Cinnamon Toast Crunch fan. It's OK to be that.
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This is absolutely semantic, and I find this logic to be entirely faulty. But to each their own - you just aren't going to convince me that I'm not a fan of the driver who I am emotionally invested in on Sundays - that's beyond absurd, as is your raiders false equivalence

You're telling me that I cant be a fan of his because I only follow NASCAR. I'm telling you that my lived experience is that I'm a fan - therefore, I am a fan.
 
jaqua19 said:
This is absolutely semantic, and I find this logic to be entirely faulty. But to each their own - you just aren't going to convince me that I'm not a fan of the driver who I am emotionally invested in on Sundays - that's beyond absurd, as is your raiders false equivalence

You're telling me that I cant be a fan of his because I only follow NASCAR. I'm telling you that my lived experience is that I'm a fan - therefore, I am a fan.
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He has a bit of a mental block I think. He doesn't think somehow that one can be a fan of Nascar AND a fan of Kyle Larson.
 
StandOnIt said:
He has a bit of a mental block I think. He doesn't think somehow that one can be a fan of Nascar AND a fan of Kyle Larson.
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I think you can absolutely be both a fan of NASCAR and Kyle Larson. Nothing I've said has indicated otherwise.
 
virtualbalboa said:
I think you can absolutely be both a fan of NASCAR and Kyle Larson. Nothing I've said has indicated otherwise.
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What the hell is this then?
If you are a fan of NASCAR and Kyle Larson only in the context of NASCAR, you aren't a fan of Kyle Larson!
 
StandOnIt said:
What the hell is this then?
If you are a fan of NASCAR and Kyle Larson only in the context of NASCAR, you aren't a fan of Kyle Larson!
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Nothing incorrect with what I said. Maybe I've been confused all this time, but I was under the impression that you could be a fan of NASCAR and be a fan of other racing series. I certainly qualify myself as having met that threshold. Have things changed where NASCAR fans can't watch other motorsports? Did I get left off Brian France's listserv?

If NASCAR is all you watch though, and you only relate to auto racing through NASCAR, then, uhh, yeah, you're only a NASCAR fan.
 
virtualbalboa said:
Nothing incorrect with what I said. Maybe I've been confused all this time, but I was under the impression that you could be a fan of NASCAR and be a fan of other racing series. I certainly qualify myself as having met that threshold. Have things changed where NASCAR fans can't watch other motorsports? Did I get left off Brian France's listserv?

If NASCAR is all you watch though, and you only relate to auto racing through NASCAR, then, uhh, yeah, you're only a NASCAR fan.
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I am only a NASCAR fan. Kyle Larson is a NASCAR driver. I am a fan of Kyle Larson as a NASCAR driver.
 
StandOnIt said:
He has a bit of a mental block I think. He doesn't think somehow that one can be a fan of Nascar AND a fan of Kyle Larson.
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The logic is incredibly faulty. But after thinking about it, I DO follow it. It's just very black and white

He's focused on being a fan of a driver without including the context of a particular (or many) racing disciplines.

I just don't think he's agreeing that "Kyle Larson the NASCAR driver" is still Kyle Larson.


Do you have, or have you had coworkers you enjoy being around at work, but wouldn't necessarily enjoy hanging out with them outside of work? Does that mean you don't deserve to claim to enjoy their company? That's how I'm seeing this lol
 
jaqua19 said:
The logic is incredibly faulty. But after thinking about it, I DO follow it. It's just very black and white

He's focused on being a fan of a driver without including the context of a particular (or many) racing disciplines.

I just don't think he's agreeing that "Kyle Larson the NASCAR driver" is still Kyle Larson.


Do you have, or have you had coworkers you enjoy being around at work, but wouldn't necessarily enjoy hanging out with them outside of work? Does that mean you don't deserve to claim to enjoy their company? That's how I'm seeing this lol
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Oh it is very black and white thinking. Going by past posts, there is this I was a fan of so in so driver before you were kind of thing going on. Does that mean that I was keeping up with Nascar in the 60's and you who came after don't know squat? There are some that think that way also.
 
jaqua19 said:
The logic is incredibly faulty. But after thinking about it, I DO follow it. It's just very black and white

He's focused on being a fan of a driver without including the context of a particular (or many) racing disciplines.

I just don't think he's agreeing that "Kyle Larson the NASCAR driver" is still Kyle Larson.


Do you have, or have you had coworkers you enjoy being around at work, but wouldn't necessarily enjoy hanging out with them outside of work? Does that mean you don't deserve to claim to enjoy their company? That's how I'm seeing this lol
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"Kyle Larson in NASCAR" is very much Kyle Larson. If you are a big Kyle Larson fan, it makes a lot of sense for you to watch him in NASCAR because it is a thing he does and he is obviously extremely good at it. It doesn't make a lot of sense for someone to be a big Kyle Larson fan but not watch him in NASCAR. Kyle is unique because you can watch him race 30+ times a year in NASCAR and 30+ times a year in something other than NASCAR and that isn't true of anyone else in the entire Cup series. You can have a parasocial relationship as a race fan in either arena. But the reality is he plays in a lot of sandboxes, and if all you do is covet his participation in one of those sandboxes and not the others, then yeah, you really aren't a fan of his.

Does that mean I think the people who are wearing #57 shirts and say they won't watch NASCAR anymore aren't Larson fans? Yeah. They aren't Larson fans either. They're almost certainly sprint car fans (late model fans don't have any sort of Larson attachment).

Does me pumping up Corey Day mean I'm trying to gatekeep that kid's fandom? No. I want people on board now pushing teams to hire him so he can get out of sprints (which I watch religiously) to NASCAR (which I definitely do not watch religiously) because I think he's the best young talent in America and I want him to make a lot of money in an objectively safer environment. I may not be a Corey Day fan someday in the future but that will be because Corey Day has moved onto bigger things. If he wants to come back and race sprints later in his life, great. If not, great. Seems like Hendrick signed him up. Good! I want to see talented racers (and I know Corey is 2nd gen) over nepobabies like the kid who's family owns Cookout or Lance Stroll or John Wes Townley.
 
StandOnIt said:
Oh it is very black and white thinking. Going by past posts, there is this I was a fan of so in so driver before you were kind of thing going on. Does that mean that I was keeping up with Nascar in the 60's and you who came after don't know squat? There are some that think that way also.
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If you were following and attending NASCAR races in the 1960s, yeah dogg. You have a lot more practical experience about that than I do and as long as what you say follows the historical record, I'm gonna defer to you. I'm on another forum right now getting ready to start a thread asking people to provide greater detail about what happened to late model racing after the early 1990s to basically now (streaming era) because I don't know a damn thing about it and I don't pretend for clout.
 
virtualbalboa said:
If you were following and attending NASCAR races in the 1960s, yeah dogg. You have a lot more practical experience about that than I do and as long as what you say follows the historical record, I'm gonna defer to you. I'm on another forum right now getting ready to start a thread asking people to provide greater detail about what happened to late model racing after the early 1990s to basically now (streaming era) because I don't know a damn thing about it and I don't pretend for clout.
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There ya go again lol. It doesn't make a flip how long I have been a fan. I'm a FAN, your are a FAN, we all are FANS.egh@#*!
 
virtualbalboa said:
"Kyle Larson in NASCAR" is very much Kyle Larson. If you are a big Kyle Larson fan, it makes a lot of sense for you to watch him in NASCAR because it is a thing he does and he is obviously extremely good at it. It doesn't make a lot of sense for someone to be a big Kyle Larson fan but not watch him in NASCAR. Kyle is unique because you can watch him race 30+ times a year in NASCAR and 30+ times a year in something other than NASCAR and that isn't true of anyone else in the entire Cup series. You can have a parasocial relationship as a race fan in either arena. But the reality is he plays in a lot of sandboxes, and if all you do is covet his participation in one of those sandboxes and not the others, then yeah, you really aren't a fan of his.

Does that mean I think the people who are wearing #57 shirts and say they won't watch NASCAR anymore aren't Larson fans? Yeah. They aren't Larson fans either. They're almost certainly sprint car fans (late model fans don't have any sort of Larson attachment).

Does me pumping up Corey Day mean I'm trying to gatekeep that kid's fandom? No. I want people on board now pushing teams to hire him so he can get out of sprints (which I watch religiously) to NASCAR (which I definitely do not watch religiously) because I think he's the best young talent in America and I want him to make a lot of money in an objectively safer environment. I may not be a Corey Day fan someday in the future but that will be because Corey Day has moved onto bigger things. If he wants to come back and race sprints later in his life, great. If not, great. Seems like Hendrick signed him up. Good! I want to see talented racers (and I know Corey is 2nd gen) over nepobabies like the kid who's family owns Cookout or Lance Stroll or John Wes Townley.
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This is objectively wrong. Inarguably objectively wrong because you don't get to decide someone else's fandom.
 
Revman said:
This season is testimony to the fact that performance cannot simply be measured in wins and points. Larson has been the best by far IMO. If I was a Larson fan, I would be very happy right now. He will only get better. I never say **** like this, but I am not wondering if he can win a championship with Hendrick, I am starting to think how many....
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@Revman put on a clinic the first 10 pages of this thread.

Totally called Larson's success before anyone else
 
I kind of get what Balboa is saying once I related it to another fandom. When I was a kid in the 90’s, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were on top. You’d hear people watch Bulls games and say “I’m a Michael Jordan fan” but insanely root for the Bulls. You had the bigger picture too of fans being a fan of NBA but really only watching when MJ played. They weren’t necessarily NBA fans or Chicago Bulls fans, they just cheered for Mike. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think that’s the point that’s trying to be made here with Larson.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I kind of get what Balboa is saying once I related it to another fandom. When I was a kid in the 90’s, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were on top. You’d hear people watch Bulls games and say “I’m a Michael Jordan fan” but insanely root for the Bulls. You had the bigger picture too of fans being a fan of NBA but really only watching when MJ played. They weren’t necessarily NBA fans or Chicago Bulls fans, they just cheered for Mike. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think that’s the point that’s trying to be made here with Larson.
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I don't think that is the point. The original premise was you can't be a Larson fan unless you buy everything he does. You are really a Nascar fan unless you do, a possible Man-baby.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I kind of get what Balboa is saying once I related it to another fandom. When I was a kid in the 90’s, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were on top. You’d hear people watch Bulls games and say “I’m a Michael Jordan fan” but insanely root for the Bulls. You had the bigger picture too of fans being a fan of NBA but really only watching when MJ played. They weren’t necessarily NBA fans or Chicago Bulls fans, they just cheered for Mike. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think that’s the point that’s trying to be made here with Larson.
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I think the same argument could be made about some of the Earnhardt Sr and Gordon fans back in the day. People are people and have more reasons and motives than I will ever figure out.

But I fail to see it as anything very remarkable. If someone tells me they are a Larson fan (or was a Gordon, Earnhardt Sr, or Michael Jordan)that is all it means to me and very little else.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I kind of get what Balboa is saying once I related it to another fandom. When I was a kid in the 90’s, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were on top. You’d hear people watch Bulls games and say “I’m a Michael Jordan fan” but insanely root for the Bulls. You had the bigger picture too of fans being a fan of NBA but really only watching when MJ played. They weren’t necessarily NBA fans or Chicago Bulls fans, they just cheered for Mike. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think that’s the point that’s trying to be made here with Larson.
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That's pretty much exactly it.
 
Greg said:
I think the same argument could be made about some of the Earnhardt Sr and Gordon fans back in the day. People are people and have more reasons and motives than I will ever figure out.

But I fail to see it as anything very remarkable. If someone tells me they are a Larson fan (or was a Gordon, Earnhardt Sr, or Michael Jordan)that is all it means to me and very little else.
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Same. They’re watching the same thing I am and that’s good, more eyeballs on auto racing. I consider it a win
 
jaqua19 said:
@Revman put on a clinic the first 10 pages of this thread.

Totally called Larson's success before anyone else
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But my perspective is tainted because of my Toyota colored glasses. Ignore me. ;) The dude is good, and I am here for it. I watch for the 5 every week. He lives in my head.
 
Revman said:
But my perspective is tainted because of my Toyota colored glasses. Ignore me. ;) The dude is good, and I am here for it. I watch for the 5 every week. He lives in my head.
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You're a fascinating dude. You can switch that bias off at the flip of a switch, you just choose never to do so 😂
 
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DIDIT said:
I am willing to wager a decent sum that Larson will not qualify on the pole for Richmond. That looks like a very tight schedule.
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I think that kind of stuff fuels him. Like when he goes a lap down and gains a second breath to come thru the field
 
Whiskyb said:
I think that kind of stuff fuels him. Like when he goes a lap down and gains a second breath to come thru the field
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I was just thinking of the possible additional media requirements/time for him to fulfill with a pole which would keep him from getting out of there as soon as possible. Heck, he probably will make sure he isn't even in the top ten...
 
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