Kyle Larson's Indy to Charlotte dash: the crucial 12min from flag to helicopter

“I’ll probably have three or four different text groups. On race day… I can go through an iPhone battery in no time.”

A big supplementary battery pack will be one of the first things Glenn checks is in his bag that day.

While plenty of US drivers have talked about their desire to do ‘The Double’, few have even attempted it, which is in no small part to the fiendish task of racing from one event to the next.

Even in ideal conditions, it’s tight. With an average running time in recent years of three hours, drivers can expect to cross the yard of bricks for the final time at around 3.45pm.

To make it to Charlotte in time for the driver’s presentation and the start of the race at 6pm (failure to do so would be terminal for Larson’s NASCAR Cup title hopes), his helicopter must have left the circuit by 4.05pm. Ten minutes later, his plane will need to be taking off from the nearby runway.

As well as Larson, the operation will also move his spotter and some support crew, plus friends, family and supporters.

“With just the mass amount of people that are at the track, you have about 12 minutes to get everybody from wherever they’re at when the race ends to a vehicle or a helicopter before we completely just lose the streets,” says Glenn. “Not even security can do anything when everyone is leaving that track.

“The second that chequered flag drops, it’s about 12 minutes for us to have about 50-ish folks in place and already out of the track.”

Some individuals naturally take priority over others: Larson’s escape plan is considerably more foolproof than others.

“He’ll get out of the [Arrow McLaren] car on pitlane,” says Glenn. “Then, depending on the time, he will probably do one quick interview on television, which is what happened last year.

“Then we will have an SUV on the racetrack. He will get into that with his wife and his PR rep. We’ll drive him around Turns 1 and 2, down the back straightaway to where there’s a gate out, and then under a tunnel to the helipad, which is on the middle of the back straightaway.”

Larson doesn’t race alone, however. His NASCAR spotter, Tyler Monn who feeds crucial information about the cars around him, will be doing the same job at Turn 3 in the Indy 500, before travelling to Charlotte for the 600 race.

“I have to worry about him getting from Turn 3 to the helipad as well,” says Glenn. “We kind of have a getaway vehicle for him. He comes down from the spotter stand, and he’ll drive across the golf course in a golf cart and get to the helipad from there.”

There are more vehicles to co-ordinate: SUVs to ferry team officials to the helipad from the pitlane; a film crew capturing the attempt for a documentary and then, finally at the rear, comes Glenn and his colleagues.

“Some of us, like the Hendrick Motorsports employees that are there working, will get out on a bus that has an escort,” he says.

Then begins a five-helicopter relay between the heliport and Indianapolis Airport ten miles away.

Larson and team officials will shuttle to the airport on the first flights, and up to four helicopters will return for friends, family and other staff.

By then, Larson will be on a private plane with the documentary crew, “The Jeffs” (Hendrick president and vice-president Jeff Gordon and Jeff Andrews), as well as a nurse who has the hour-long flight to revive Larson’s energy levels with the help of an IV drip and a meal.

Three more planes will follow the first to Concord-Padgett Airport, a short helicopter hop from Charlotte Speedway where Larson can switch to the more familiar territory of the NASCAR Cup and a race that he won in his 2021 championship year.

“I guess that’s where I can really take a breath, when I know his plane has taken off,” says Glenn.

All this assumes that the afternoon goes to plan. It will only take a few lengthy cautions or a red flag period in the Indy 500 to send the schedule awry.

Last year will go down as a textbook example of how the double timetable can spiral out of control. After a four-hour rain delay Larson finished the Indy 500 convincingly, missing the start of the Coca Cola 600.

Substitute driver Ryan Allgaier took his place for the NASCAR round but Larson’s plans to swap into the race seat came to naught as rain then stopped the competition on Charlotte.

That won’t happen this year, as NASCAR has changed its rules so that Larson would be barred from the title-deciding Playoffs if he doesn’t start in Charlotte.

If there’s a delay at Indianapolis, He will either not start or retire mid-race — an eventuality that Glenn seems understandably uncomfortable to contemplate: “We just really hope that we don’t have to face that scenario”.

For now the dry weather forecast means he remains buoyant; confidence reinforced by the  experience that Glenn and his team of 20 logistics co-ordinators gained from last year’s attempt.

There is, however one delay that Hendrick would like to see: in the event that Larson won the Indy 500, the plan is for an “accelerated” celebration, which includes the podium and pouring the milk. While it is thought NASCAR would delay the race start for a short time to allow this, Larson will still only have minutes before leaving the circuit.

But even a completely successful transfer won’t be the cue for Glenn to relax: he’ll have to immediately shift focus to the middle of June.

“That’s when we go and race in Mexico for the first time for the Cup Series,” he says. “After Mexico I can take a breather”