NASCAR’s Elton Sawyer confirms why NASCAR won’t penalize Kyle Larson for son Owen climbing on car

A beautiful moment happened after Kyle Larson captured the checkered flag in Las Vegas, as his son Owen joined him to celebrate.

Larson’s son climbed on top of his car, and inside his car to share in his father’s joy following his first win of the season, driving home the fact that NASCAR is certainly a family sport. However, some voiced concern following the moment, believing it could lead to a penalty if Owen broke something in the car.

In this scenario though, NASCAR has decided not to be the fun police, as Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer explained why Larson’s celebration with Owen won’t lead to a penalty for the Hendrick star.

“If you look at our sport, it’s a family sport, and to see Kyle win the race and Owen come running across the infield there, I just thought that was a great moment,” Sawyer said, via Sportsnaut. “We’ve seen that before.

“We’ve seen Kevin Harvick and Keelan at Michigan a couple years ago. We do want to preserve the vehicle and make sure it gets through the inspection process. But in this case, there was no issues there. If we see issues going forward, then we will, you know, we’ll get with the teams and the drivers and say, ‘Hey, we probably need to look at it from this angle.’ But I will say that was a special moment and to see that was great.”

That’s going to be chalked up to a W for NASCAR. If they penalized Larson for celebrating with his family, that would’ve been a rough look. Heck, the moment was arguably the best from last weekend’s race, NASCAR should be hoping for more of that in the sport, not less.

After the moment had passed, Larson spoke with the media regarding sharing his victory with his family, elaborating on how special a memory it’ll be for his family to always have that time together.

“I wasn’t surprised, I guess, because when we won here in the fall I think he did the same thing,” Kyle Larson said. “He ran all the way from watching it grandparents’ motorhome to all the way to the start/finish line. So he was huffing and puffing when he got there. But it’s fun. It’s really fun to celebrate with the family.

“These are core memories that my kids are going to be able to remember for the rest of their lives.”

We’re sure Kyle Larson will find Victory Lane once again in no time. It’ll be a joy to watch his son Owen and the rest of Larson’s family celebrate victories with him for the foreseeable future, unpenalized by NASCAR.