Mike Joy declares Kyle Larson will end his career as “Top Five” NASCAR driver ever

Fox Sports’ Mike Joy has asserted that Kyle Larson is a driver that has potential to become one of the bets five racers in NASCAR history.

Mike Joy declares Kyle Larson will end his career as “Top Five” NASCAR driver ever

Kyle Larson and Mike Joy (Via IMAGO and Sportscasting)

Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson is regarded as the most dominant drivers of his generation and his 2021 Cup title victory with 10 race wins proves it. The 32-year-old is a 31 times Cup race winner, with majority of his wins coming after 2021, when he finally got a solid car with the HMS move. Senior NASCAR presenter Mike Joy sees a great in making with the partnership.

On his latest appearance in the Happy Hour podcast, hosted by the 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick, Mike Joy asserted that Kyle Larson has the potential to end his career as certainly a top 10 and possibly a top 5 racer in the sports history. This assertion comes despite the fact that it is really hard to compare driers of different generations and rank them.

Certainly Top 10. Possibly Top Five. It’s very, very hard, of course, to compare eras. We have no idea how David Pearson would do in this car today, or Richard Petty, or even Jeff Gordon. We don’t know, we’ll never know. We have no idea how you (Kevin Harvick) might’ve done in one of those cars in the 70s and 80s, before power steering or even before front-steered cars…

Mike Joy said via Happy Hour podcast.

The drivers in the past were racing different types of vehicles, with different kinds of engines and car models. It’s not just that factor as some great drivers doesn’t get recognized for their efforts in their prime years as they were in shadows of other drivers who were legendary.

So, we’ll never really know. The other thing is, sometimes you get a driver that’s so dominant that the success of other drivers pales in comparison.

Mike Joy added.

Mike Joy explains why Kevin Harvick wasn’t appreciated for his NASCAR dominance

Kevin Harvick was one such driver as in his prime years, he shared the tracks with the likes of Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch, resulting in him not getting the respect he deserves. Mike Joy declared in the same podcast that Harvick’s consistency was overlooked because Johnson was just unstoppable with HMS.

Kevin Harvick
Kevin Harvick (Via IMAGO)

I’m going, ‘When Kevin was racing, how did we not make a bigger deal out of this? Oh yeah, Jimmie Johnson was winning five championships in a row,’ and everything else was well down the list in comparison. So, we celebrate it now. Sorry if we didn’t celebrate it all that much then.

Mike Joy said.

The veteran presenter, who is now a colleague of Harvick in the NASCAR Fox broadcasting booth, has some great points. The latter is one of the best racers ever to be part of NASCAR owing to his consistency. His 60 Cup race wins and 47 Xfinity wins, alongside three championships from all three national series speaks for itself.

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