CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ NASCAR driver Kyle Larson threw his job away by saying one word on Easter Sunday _ the N-word.
"What Kyle Larson did to himself in that one moment was like hitting the wall running at 300 mph," Humpy Wheeler, the retired racing executive who ran Charlotte Motor Speedway for 33 years, said.
But will Larson ever be able to resurrect his career at NASCAR's highest level? And, if so, how?
The answer to that question is more complicated than you would imagine. Only 27, Larson is a driver with undeniable talent.
"Outside of Kyle Busch, Larson is the best driver we've got," Wheeler said.
That doesn't matter much right now in a sport where sponsors control an enormous piece of the pie.
Larson not only has to find a new team owner willing to forgive a reprehensible error and take a chance on him if he is ever going to return to NASCAR's Cup series. He also has to find a primary sponsor willing to write huge checks to the driver who said the N-word.
It would be unfathomable for executives at Bank of America to tell the Carolina Panthers who they wanted to play quarterback just because B of A has signed a long-term deal as the title sponsor of the Panthers' stadium.
But sponsors routinely provide input in NASCAR about who drives the car their logos are wrapped around. Larson is radioactive after his racial slur during a livestream feed while referring to his spotter (who is white) before a virtual race Sunday night.
It turned out to be a fake race with very real consequences for Larson, who issued a 42-second video apology on social media Monday for what he said and has been publicly silent since.
Given the fact that Larson was scheduled to be a highly-sought free-agent driver after the 2020 season, saying the N-word probably cost him at least $10 million in current and future earnings. That he said the word so casually was noted by many _ not in a fit of anger, but in a way that suggested the word was part of his vernacular.
Retired driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. noted on his podcast this week: "If you don't have that word in your vocabulary, you don't have to be careful. ... If it's not something you use, you never have to be concerned."
Nearly all of Larson's NASCAR sponsors _ McDonald's, Chevrolet and Credit One Bank among them _ issued stern statements dissociating themselves from Larson within 24 hours of his flub.
And that forced the hand of Chip Ganassi Racing, which had originally suspended Larson without pay Monday but hadn't yet fired him. It was either fire Larson and keep the sponsors _ with another to-be-named driver piloting the same No. 42 car _ or hang onto Larson and lose millions.
Not surprisingly, CGR fired Larson Tuesday.
"This is what we call a flash crisis," said Dr. Alan Freitag, a professor of communication studies at UNC Charlotte who has studied crisis communication extensively. "It took about 4/10 of a second for Larson to say the N-word. But it's NASCAR. A lot can happen in 4/10 of a second."
