Kyle Larson breaks down NASCAR championship race on 'The Tonight Show'

As the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion, Kyle Larson is making his rounds with the trophy and in the media. Last night he was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Perhaps a bit of an outdated media appearance, but one that has largely not happened for NASCAR drivers in recent years.

Kyle Larson was on late-night television, and he used the opportunity to show the rest of the world what NASCAR is all about. He talked about how tough and long races are, the heat drivers battle in the cars, and more.

Part of Larson’s short appearance on the show was him detailing the championship race. I think he did it in a way that made sense for the non-racing audience. But we all know how it really went down…just kidding. He does a solid job explaining it and it came across well.

“Yeah, I got pretty lucky. The way our format is, you know, it comes down to one race, four drivers,” Larson explained to Fallon. “We’re competing with the other drivers, too, but you just have to beat the other three, and I was not going to do that until we got a late caution. Our team gambled, took two tires, and … yeah, I had a flat tire with under 100 laps to go, it was crazy. … I thought it was close to over. I tried to stay somewhat motivated and confident, but never in a million years did I think it would actually pay off.”

Hopefully, that one-race finale didn’t sound too appealing to those non-race fans. After all, if they tune in next season, it is going to be an entirely different set of rules for the NASCAR Playoffs or Championship or Chase – we’ll see what they determine.

Kyle Larson is a quality champion for NASCAR

With no way to change what happened last week, there is no point in relitigating and rehashing the drama. Instead, I’m ready to move on with Kyle Larson as the champion, and I think he is going to do an excellent job this time around as Two-Time.

When Larson won his first championship in 2021, it was awkward, but in a different way. He was still fairly fresh off of the iRacing scandal in 2020, and NASCAR was in a strange place in the media world, sports world, and was about to transition into a new era of the sport. Larson wasn’t necessarily ready to be the representative for the sport that he needed to be and the sport wasn’t exactly in a great place to promote him, either.

However, four years later, we see a difference. Larson is a clean, buttoned-up driver. He’s now a father of three kids and has grown and matured in that time as well. The Larson we saw in 2020 and 2021 isn’t the same one we see now. This time, Larson is ready to carry the banner for the sport and NASCAR is ready to promote its champion to the world.

Kyle Larson is spreading the word about stock car racing. Can he help carry it to new heights in 2026 and beyond?