BROOKLYN, Mich. — Kyle Larson said he’s embarrassed about the mistake he made last weekend and is thankful Ty Dillon wasn’t injured when Larson slammed into Dillon’s car at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“Just made a big mistake,” Larson said Saturday of the incident with Dillon in Turn 1 on the road course. “I got in there deep, and I got out of shape. I was hoping that by the time I got it under control, I could go straight before they turned into the corner.
“Once I realized that I was going to hit (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s car), I tried to just do what I could to turn right and miss both of them. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
“Embarrassing. Feel really bad about wiping Ty out and just very thankful that him and I were both safe and didn’t get seriously injured. It was scary for both of us.”
Larson drove too deep into the braking zone. He then charged into the 90-degree right-hand turn in an attempt to avoid hitting Stenhouse and Dillon.
“When you miss your braking point by a little bit, or a lot, there’s no slowing down,” Stenhouse said.
Dillon said he was not expecting the contact from Larson’s car.
“Typically, when you’re going to hit the wall or you can see something coming, you will tense your core, tense your muscles as hard as you can - at least I do,” Dillon said. “I think that maybe makes impacts feel different on different parts of your body.
“With that one, I had no getting ready for it. I think my body just took a lot of the dissipation of the impact. I think that’s why my ribs and everything were just sore.”
Dillon said he was sore until Friday.
After the accident, Larson ran over to Dillon to check on him.
“I hit him hard and it knocked the wind out of me, so I knew it was a hard hit for him, too,” Larson said. “And it was 1,000% on me, so I wanted to make sure he was OK.
“I like Ty. He’s a really good guy. I felt bad immediately, and I wanted to check on him the next day. Thankfully, he understood the mistake and that made me feel much better about it because I feel horrible about it and just glad that we were both safe.”
Dillon said nothing was spoken in anger when Larson approached after the accident.
“I wasn’t mad,” Dillon said. “He’s too good of a driver for him to do anything like that on purpose. I know Larson. I think he was in shock initially because he asked me, ‘What happened? I don’t really know.’ (Dillon told him) ’You hit me really hard.’ But I was glad to see that he was OK.
“When I got out. I’m still trying to get my bearings back. Everybody was like, ‘You were limping.’ I had no leg problems. I just wasn’t sure what on my body was still in the right place. So I was just kind of getting my feet under me. I think it just shocked him as much as anything. I could kind of see the fear and everything in his eyes.”
Dillon said he appreciated Larson checking up on him Monday.
“I’m sure from his vantage point, it was really scary,” Dillon said. “He reached out to me on Monday checking in on me, and it was really kind.
“I knew it was a mistake. Looking at (the data from Larson’s car), it’s really a rare mistake that you wouldn’t think that he would make, but we’re all human. And that was kind of what I told him, ‘Hey, we’re all going to make mistakes.’”
#NASCAR … Kyle Larson explains what happened in his crash with Ty Dillon last weekend at Indianapolis. pic.twitter.com/MTLoxCjVSo
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) August 6, 2022
#NASCAR … Ty Dillon discusses the conversation he and Kyle Larson had after Larson slammed into his car last week at Indianapolis. pic.twitter.com/5qfiPgU5Cv
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) August 6, 2022