Kyle Larson met with the media in advance to the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Darlington Raceway and discussed his upcoming Indianapolis 500/Coca-Cola 600 double:

I hate to bring up a worst-case scenario, but I need to ask you – if the Indy 500 starts on time and you’re well into it and it rains briefly, who makes the call on whether you stay in Indy or come to Charlotte?

“Yeah, hopefully that doesn’t arise. But I’m not sure who the one is to make that call. I’m sure there’s a window of time that when it gets to a certain point I have to leave because the Coca-Cola 600 is the priority that weekend and chasing another NASCAR Cup Series championship is the priority.

Yeah, I just hope that doesn’t come about (laughs). Tony Kanaan is there for reserve, if something like that does happen, to fill in for the (Indy) 500. But yeah, just pray that doesn’t happen.”

You mentioned Tony Kanaan is the reserve driver for the Indy 500. We know that Kevin Harvick is going to be in the car for practice for the All-Star Race. Do you have a backup driver in case something happens and you can’t make it for the All-Star Race or you can’t make it for the Coca-Cola 600, who’s going to be in that car and racing?

“No, I haven’t heard that yet. No.. I don’t know, I’m not sure. I guess maybe those are all last-minute calls I think, or we’ll probably just like try to manifest a perfect weekend in our minds (laughs). Maybe behind the scenes, they’ve been working on that. I think it all depends on weather and stuff; kind of forecasting what that might look like and maybe plans will change. But no, I don’t know.”

Being able to do something that not many people get to do here the next few weeks, what are you looking most forward to, or even intrigued about what these next couple of weeks might be like?  

“I don’t know.. I think for me, I don’t think about that a whole lot. I think more about – I get excited about learning new things and being presented a new challenge, which an IndyCar is a new challenge. Learning that style of racing a little bit and seeing what translates some. Racing against other drivers that I’ve watched on TV for quite a while or whatever – like that’s kind of what I get most excited about. But mostly, just learning and seeing how quickly you can learn and if you can be competitive. I think if you can do a good job with all of that, then all the other stuff that would be seen as more important on the result end of things would be great.

But yeah, I think I’m just excited to learn something new.”

— Team Chevy —