Larson and Elliott Poised To Be Next Stars In NASCAR

Larson battles Elliott in the final lap of Saturday's Sprint Showdown

Robert Laberge/Getty Images

NASCAR fans got a glimpse of the future recently as rising stars Kyle Larson, 23, and Chase Elliott, 20, battled for victory in the waning stages of consecutive races.

Two weeks ago at Dover, Larson and Elliott seesawed back and forth from the second and third positions in the closing laps as they each tried to run down Matt Kenseth for their first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins. Larson almost cleared Kenseth to take the checkered flag, but the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran beat him to the finish line by a mere .187 seconds.

Last Saturday in the final 10-lap shootout of the Sprint Showdown exhibition, Larson and Elliott banged doors for nearly the entire race. At the conclusion of their mad dash to the finish, Larson bumped Elliott's right door to slow him down and edged him out for the win by only .016 seconds.

Larson and Elliott get their next chances to win their first career premier series races in Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (6 p.m. ET on FOX). The two will attempt to parallel four-time series champion Jeff Gordon – Larson's childhood idol and Elliott's predecessor in the No. 24 Chevrolet – who jumpstarted his legendary career with his first of 93 wins as a 23-year-old in the 1994 edition of NASCAR’s longest race.

"I certainly wouldn't complain if I was battling for wins for the next 10 years," said Elliott after Dover. "It would be great on my watch. I don't know about (Larson), but that's the way I would do it. That would be great. I'd love to be in the mix for wins moving forward."

Larson agreed with the prospect of dueling with Elliott for wins over the next decade.

"It was fun racing with him," Larson said. "We've had a lot of good battles through the XFINITY Series and even K&N. Hopefully we're battling up front for many years to come."

Elliott finished 18th in his Charlotte Motor Speedway debut last spring and has claimed three top 10s in four NASCAR XFINITY Series starts there.

“We were fortunate enough to run the 600 last year," Elliott said. "I think that’s good experience to have. That place is so temperature sensitive, so it was good to get all of that information. I’m excited to get back and hopefully take what we’ve learned and get a little bit better."

Larson's best Charlotte showing was a sixth-place finish in fall of 2014. He won the spring 2014 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at the 1.5-mile track.

"The 600's a really tough race," Larson said. "I've seen drivers who've run well at the All-Star Race who didn't run well in the 600. Hopefully that's not the case this week. We're going to work really hard to try to have a good run and hopefully it all works out."

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