CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR driver Kyle Larson threw his job away by saying one word on Easter Sunday — the N-word.
“What Kyle Larson did to himself in that one moment was like hitting the wall running at 300 mph,” Humpy Wheeler, the retired racing executive who ran Charlotte Motor Speedway for 33 years, said.
But will Larson ever be able to resurrect his career at NASCAR’s highest level? And, if so, how?
The answer to that question is more complicated than you would imagine. Only 27, Larson is a driver with undeniable talent.
“Outside of Kyle Busch, Larson is the best driver we’ve got,” Wheeler said.
That doesn’t matter much right now in a sport where sponsors control an enormous piece of the pie.
Larson not only has to find a new team owner willing to forgive a reprehensible error and take a chance on him if he is ever going to return to NASCAR’s Cup series. He also has to find a primary sponsor willing to write huge checks to the driver who said the N-word.
It would be unfathomable for executives at Bank of America to tell the Carolina Panthers who they wanted to play quarterback just because B of A has signed a long-term deal as the title sponsor of the Panthers’ stadium.
But sponsors routinely provide input in NASCAR about who drives the car their logos are wrapped around. Larson is radioactive after his racial slur during a livestream feed while referring to his spotter (who is white) before a virtual race Sunday night.
It turned out to be a fake race with very real consequences for Larson, who issued a 42-second video apology on social media Monday for what he said and has been publicly silent since.
Given the fact that Larson was scheduled to be a highly-sought free-agent driver after the 2020 season, saying the N-word probably cost him at least $10 million in current and future earnings. That he said the word so casually was noted by many — not in a fit of anger, but in a way that suggested the word was part of his vernacular.
Retired driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. noted on his podcast this week: “If you don’t have that word in your vocabulary, you don’t have to be careful. … If it’s not something you use, you never have to be concerned.”
Nearly all of Larson’s NASCAR sponsors — McDonald’s, Chevrolet and Credit One Bank among them — issued stern statements dissociating themselves from Larson within 24 hours of his flub.
And that forced the hand of Chip Ganassi Racing, which had originally suspended Larson without pay Monday but hadn’t yet fired him. It was either fire Larson and keep the sponsors — with another to-be-named driver piloting the same No. 42 car — or hang onto Larson and lose millions.
Not surprisingly, CGR fired Larson Tuesday.
“This is what we call a flash crisis,” said Dr. Alan Freitag, a professor of communication studies at UNC Charlotte who has studied crisis communication extensively. “It took about 4/10 of a second for Larson to say the N-word. But it’s NASCAR. A lot can happen in 4/10 of a second.”
———
Bubba Wallace is the only African-American driver in NASCAR’s top series. He’s well aware that NASCAR has a troublesome history with race and has long been labeled a “racist and redneck sport,” as Wallace put it in a statement Thursday.
NASCAR’s recent efforts at diversity and inclusion have included Larson, who is of Japanese descent and was considered one of the most successful products of NASCAR’s “Drive for Diversity” program.
Wallace said he was disappointed in Larson but that he didn’t think his fellow driver should be permanently excommunicated from NASCAR (which has suspended Larson indefinitely). The two have had several interactions this week, including a FaceTime conversation.
“I told him it was too easy for him to use the word and that he has to do better and get it out of his vocabulary,” Wallace wrote. “There is no place for that word in this world. I am not mad at him and I believe that he, along with most people, deserve second chances.”
NASCAR drivers are unique in that so much of their job involves glad-handing sponsors who pay the race team’s bills.
Joey Logano, one of the top drivers in the sport, said on NBC Sports Network this week: “When we sign up for this, we know that you’re supporting and representing Fortune 500 companies … More importantly, you’re representing your own brand. You always have to be on. Somebody always has that camera phone.”
Larson had developed a reputation for bluntness in the Cup garage, one that was sometimes celebrated by media and fans tired of the politically correct corporate-speak spouted by so many drivers. Now, though, his tongue has gotten him into trouble.
Earnhardt Jr., who owns a race team himself, said on his podcast that he felt sorry that Larson had put himself in this position but that he also understood the sponsors’ quick reactions in a sport struggling for firm financial footing.
“These are very difficult times, very delicate times,” Earnhardt said. “The teams are extremely fragile right now. You don’t want to give any partner that you have a reason to consider their involvement and their commitment.”
———
Larson is now entering the “recovery phase” of his crisis, according to Freitag, the UNCC professor. Freitag said that the sensitivity training mandated by NASCAR will be essential and that he believed Larson shouldn’t do any interviews until he completes it.
“Larson touched the third rail,” Freitag said. “And he did so carelessly, almost frivolously. But sensitivity training, done correctly, can be a life-changing experience. He needs to learn more about the Civil Rights movement. He needs to be smartened up about the emotional history of the word he said before he can work on image restoration.”
Freitag said he thought Larson’s video apology came across as sincere. Larson said in the video that he had “no excuse” for saying the N-word.
“I understand the damage is probably unrepairable, and I own up to that,” Larson said during his apology. “But I just want to let you all know how sorry I am.”
Larson grew up specializing in dirt-track racing. In the short term, he could return to that form of racing, which is much less lucrative, with his eponymous team that runs in the World of Outlaws series.
There have been other instances of sports figures using the N-word and surfacing elsewhere at a lower level. Most recently, former NHL head coach Bill Peters — after it was revealed that he had directed racial epithets at a black player in hockey’s minor leagues a decade before — resigned from his job as head coach of the Calgary Flames. Five months later, Peters took a job as a head coach in Russia’s primary pro hockey league.
Wheeler, the former racing executive, believes Larson will return to Cup racing one day. Any penance Larson first pays at a lower level of racing, Wheeler said, will be like “sending Mickey Mantle to the minors.”
“Kyle Larson will be back in NASCAR,” Wheeler said. “He’s too good. He puts race cars in places that others can’t, and everyone knows that. He’ll take the sensitivity training and then NASCAR will say: ‘He’s healed!’ There’s just one thing, though: He’s going to have to find a sponsor.”
———
©2020 The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)
Visit The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) at www.charlotteobserver.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.