Kyle Larson steals Easter headlines with slur on LIVE broadcast
NASCAR is currently postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Drivers have turned to iRacing, the online racing service.
Watch the video of the Kyle Larson iRacing slur below.
Update: NASCAR’s only African-American driver comments on Kyle Larson’s n-word usage
Update: Kyle Larson fired by Chip Ganassi Racing
Update: Sponsors abandon Kyle Larson
Update: NASCAR penalizes Kyle Larson
Update: Kyle Larson releases video apology
Update: Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman says Kyle Larson ‘needs his ass beat’
Last Sunday, Kyle Larson and Daniel Suarez were involved in multiple crashes. As the yellow dropped, the drivers continued to spin each other. Officials eventually disqualified both drivers from the LIVE televised events.
Now, Larson has new problems….
On Easter Sunday, NASCAR Cup Series driver Landon Cassill setup a hosted race at Autodromo Nazionale Monza.
Racing stars in the event: Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Corey LaJoie, Denny Hamlin, Bobby Labonte, Ron Capps, Matt DiBenedetto, James Hinchcliffe, Max Papis, Ryan Truex, Cody Ware, Rodney Childress, Josef Newgarden, Conor Daly, Joey Gase, Justin Allgaier, Myatt Snider, Tyler Reddick, Parker Kligerman, Ross Chastain, Landon Cassill, Tommy Joe Martins, Garrett Smithley and Kyle Weatherman.
Monza is a track built in 1922. It features a crazy 4.250-mile oval.
An oval of that size is clearly unsafe. As a result, the track hasn’t been used in years. However, bumps and bruises aren’t real in a digital world and the oval is very much in use.
Landon Cassill setup the hosted iRacing event on the oval and invited real-world racing stars to join the show. In total 62 drivers took the ‘Monza Madness’ green flag for the 35-min timed event.
Cautions were disabled. The race was designed to be a shit-show, the best form of one. A fun digital event that makes no sense at all.
Justin Botelho drove to the win. However, that’s not what anyone’s talking about.
NASCAR driver Kyle Larson was involved in a crash on lap 6 of the 30 lap event. After the crash, Larson dropped the N word.
iRacing allows drivers to communicate with each other. The word was broadcast to the entire channel and all the live streams included.
The race was shown LIVE on Twitch. It was also shown on various drivers live streams of the event in addition to the eNASCAR website.
Kyle Larson: N-Word
Kyle Larson: “I can’t see it. You can’t hear me? Hey nigger.”
Larson appeared to think he was having mix issues. Instead, all the drivers and live stream viewers could hear him just fine.
Aron MacEachern: “Wow.”
Anthony Alfredo: “Kyle, you’re talking to everyone bud.”
Aron MacEachern: “Yup, we heard that.”
Conor Daly: “Yikes!”
Justin Batelho: “Oh damn! He did not just say that.”
Multiple drivers shared LIVE stream showing their faces as well as their windshield view during the event. In sync, their jaws dropped.
Within minutes, Kyle Larson was trending on twitter.
Kyle Larson is in his 8th year of the NASCAR Cup Series. He’s collected 6 wins throughout his career and currently drives full-time for Chip Ganassi Racing.
It’s still unclear who Larson was referencing in the LIVE chat. However, it appears he was trying to contact his personal spotter on a private channel but was instead speaking over the public chat.
It’s worth noting that drivers are required to use their real names on the iRacing service. At the same time, the driver currently speaking appears as a pop-up to all drivers as they chat. Confirming the phrase came from Kyle Larson’s account.
NASCAR comments
NASCAR Statement (April 13, 2020 – 9:30am): “NASCAR is aware of insensitive language used by a driver during an iRacing event on Sunday and is currently gathering more information.”
Kyle Larson drops N word on iRacing Live stream (VIDEO)
Note: A previous version of this story stated that Larson may have been speaking to Parker Kligerman. However, it’s still unclear who he was speaking to.
More
Update: NASCAR’s only African-American driver comments on Kyle Larson’s n-word usage
Update: Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman says Kyle Larson ‘needs his ass beat’
Update: Kyle Larson fired by Chip Ganassi Racing
Update: Sponsors abandon Kyle Larson
Update: Kyle Larson releases video apology
Update: Kyle Larson suspended by NASCAR
Update: Chip Ganassi Racing suspends Kyle Larson
Links
Kyle Larson | Chip Ganassi Racing | NASCAR | eNASCAR | iRacing
