What do you do when the overall total thinks a racist? When did his career collapse because he uttered the N-word while playing a late-night video game?
Kyle Larson packed his bags and left North Carolina, returning to his local California, too embarrassed to show his face in public.
The facts were transparent and he does not deny them: he ran at the end of Easter Sunday, he may not listen to his observer on his helmet and used the N-word to get the attention of his colleagues. His rapid fall: Larson, 28, lost his sponsors, his task and any chance of getting a multimillion-dollar contract at NASCAR’s upcoming loose agency.
Depressed and devastated, Larson began an adventure to perceive why he had said the word and how to grow from experience. What he found out was that he lived the most of his life in a bubble where he won races all that mattered. Everything that happened in the genuine world just isn’t on your radar.
“I’m just ignorant. And immature. I didn’t perceive the negativity and pain that accompanies it,” Larson told The Associated Press. “It’s not a word I’ve used. I grew up in Northern California, I never ran and that’s all I focus on. There’s probably a lot of genuine reports I didn’t have and I just didn’t know how hurtful that word is.
Larson sat with the AP at an Indianapolis hotel on Wednesday for his first interview since he fired on April 15 through Chip Ganassi Racing after all sponsors broke draws. He had also been suspended through NASCAR and was scheduled to attend an awareness course for re-installation.
Larson without delay took the course. Then he had to do more.
He met retired football star Tony Sanneh, whose base works on the progression and empowerment of youth in the Minneapolis area. Larson went to Sanneh and volunteered at the base in the weeks leading up to the city, and the country, being shaken by the death in May of George Floyd in police custody.
“I take my homework very seriously and made it clear that I wasn’t there for a dog and pony display where he shows up and writes a check and we do a photo shoot,” Sanneh told AP. “But we took 20 food pallets at a hundred degrees-day and took care of them for hours to distribute to a line of 400 cars. He was here to listen, to be informed and it was for him to grow personally.
Floyd died a few weeks after that first stopover on and Larson returned to Minneapolis. Sanneh took him to the place where Floyd died and they stopped in parts of the city in protests opposing racial injustice.
It’s a new apartment for Larson. His circle of relatives, Father Mike and Mother Janet, faithful to raising their son to make the right decisions in life, being an intelligent user and treating others in a similar way, made racing a hobby, and when Larson began pracing karting at age 7, he used all his discretionary income. Continue your career as a pilot.
“I never knew how privileged I was in the way I grew up,” Larson said. “I never had to worry about anything and I guess I was naive. I didn’t fully perceive that there were other people suffering with other things on a daily basis. It was very powerful, very touching.
Sanneh put Larson in touch with former Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Larson visited his base in East St. Louis. He had a phone call with Max Siegel, the chief executive of USA Track and Field, who also leads a NASCAR-authorized team that is part of the diversity program of the inventory car series. Larson, which is a Japanese component, followed the same program in his to NASCAR.
Larson also continued the paintings he was already making with the Urban Youth Racing School in Philadelphia. The nonprofit is helping minorities advance motorsport, and Jysir Fisher, one of his students, celebrated with Larson on the road to victory after a victory in Delaware last October.
Fisher was deeply disappointed by Larson’s use of the N-word and discussed it with founder Anthony Martin. When Larson said he was looking to make a stopover at the school, an assembly was planned with Fisher.
“Kyle set out to come to this school and apologize. I didn’t need to do it on the phone. I wanted to do it face to face,” Martin told AP. “It had a strong effect on Jysir. His favorite driving force is Kyle Larson.
At school, Martin said his wife had given Larson a 400-year history lesson on racial inequality. He sat down and listened to every piece. He listened and learned. He was honest about the implementation of the work.”
Larson also hired a diversity coach, Doug Harris, CEO of The Kaleidoscope Group, who specializes in diversity and inclusion consulting.
Martin understands that celebrities go through moves to fix their symbol after a fall.
He insists that’s not what Larson has done in the last four months. He noted that Larson has not announced any of his behind-the-scenes paintings and remains in common contact with the school about projects in which he could help.
“Children make mistakes, ” said Martin. “Has Kyle ever been racist? Absolutely not.”
Only Larson is not a child. He is the married father of two young men and his mistake occurred in his seventh year of career at the highest point of NASCAR. He accepts he’s known better.
He said he wasn’t doing what he was doing in a desperate attempt to get his homework back. Larson, whose maternal grandparents spent time in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, insists he needs an education.
“I felt I had to do more, and I sought to show through moves that I’m a bigger user than before,” Larson said. “Sensitivity education is excellent, but I felt it was just a starting point for what I had to do.”
Larson spent his time in NASCAR exile at the point of his career, driving sports cars across the country. He has amassed 31 victories from coast to coast; This weekend, he will compete in the Indy Mile Race at the fairgrounds around the same time as the Indianapolis 500 cross the city.
He has returned to his roots and possibly the race closest to his heart, going from the dirt track to the track with all the drivers he grew up with.
He’s still waiting to get back to NASCAR. The Cup Series drivers who are part of their close circle of friends have stood firm and said they would be welcome.
“He loves the land, of that there is no doubt. He also loves Cup racing,” said Denny Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500-mile winner and fellow golfer. “He did all the right things. Obviously, he put himself in a very bad position by saying something completely inappropriate.
“But, you know, other people make mistakes. Many other people make mistakes.”
Larson doesn’t know if a team or sponsors will be willing to give it a try. He returned home to North Carolina and met NASCAR’s needs for its reinstatement. He said Wednesday that he had still implemented the reinstallation.
NASCAR has been operating with its own racial calculation and recently banned the demonstration of the Confederate flag at the behest of Bubba Wallace, the only full-time black driving force in the series.
“I made a mistake and I’m paying for it and I’m content with him,” Larson said. “NASCAR is where I sought to be and I think I’ve shown that I can compete at Cup level. I’d like to go back and see if there’s a way. All I can do is keep improving and let my movements show who I really am.
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