Even though he's out of the championship battle, Larson will keep fighting to the end

The defending Cup champ has become a much different driver ever since his unpleasant incident two years ago

If you thought Kyle Larson would get pushed around and fade meekly into the twilight of the NASCAR season, you don’t know Kyle Larson.

He may stand 5-foot-6 and weigh 140 pounds in full uniform, and he might be among the softest spoken of stock car racing’s stars. But when a push turns into a shove, which the 30-year-old defending Cup Series champion absorbed last week from an irate Bubba Wallace after their crash at Las Vegas, Larson doesn’t answer with his fists. Or his words. Or his ire.

He gets back in the race car and shreds the field.

Larson didn’t just win Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he basically made it a one-man show. He won the first and second stages, led 199 of 267 laps and won by 1.261 seconds over Ross Chastain.

A longtime master on the 1 ½-mile oval, Larson had never won at Homestead until Sunday. It was a sweet comeback after what happened a week earlier, when Larson had to dust himself off at Las Vegas after a few hard shoves from Wallace.

Larson drifted high out of Turn 4 early in that race and squeezed Wallace into the outside wall. Wallace then drove down the track and into the right rear of Larson’s car, and both crashed hard. Wallace exited his car and gave Larson a few hard shoves before walking away. NASCAR suspended Wallace for a week.

Larson, meanwhile, proved that it’s not how you fall but how you get back up again. He’s had to pick himself up before, in a much bigger way than what happened last week.

Two years ago, he was suspended by NASCAR and lost his ride with Chip Ganassi Racing after he uttered a racial slur during an online racing event. He took responsibility for that action, underwent sensitivity training and vowed never to fail himself and those who counted upon him (his family, his fans, his team and his sponsors) in that way again.

He spent nearly a year away from NASCAR and dominated on dirt tracks, hoping to get a second chance at stock car racing’s highest level. He got it last year with Hendrick Motorsports and turned it into the ultimate comeback, winning 10 races and the Cup championship.

A favorite to win the title this year, he won the second race of the season at Fontana but only one other, at Watkins Glen, before Sunday. Along the way, he also fell out of the race for the playoffs.

But Larson kept driving hard for his team and, especially, his teammate Chase Elliott, who’s in a good position to make the Final Four for the championship race at Phoenix next week. Sunday’s victory also put the Hendrick team in strong position for the owners championship, and that’s a big deal to Larson.

Martinsville, where the series races this Sunday in the penultimate event of the season, hasn’t been one of Larson’s best tracks (one top-five in 16 career races). But he’s been strong at Phoenix (one victory, to win the championship race last year, with four top-fives and six top-10s).

“I can’t win the championship, but it means more to me to win as a team,” Larson said after his Homestead win. “We’re going to go to Phoenix and try to get another championship.”

And if you think that’s the extent of the fire in the diminutive native of Elk Grove, California, he added this:

“I hope you fans enjoyed the ass kicking. Hope to do it again in a couple of weeks.”