NASCAR star Kyle Larson uses racial slur during virtual race – By Jenna Fryer (The Associated Press) / April 13 2020
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR star Kyle Larson used a racial slur on a live stream during a virtual race – the second driver in a week to draw scrutiny while using the online racing platform to fill time during the coronavirus pandemic.
Larson was competing in an iRacing event Sunday night when he appeared to lose communication on his headset with his spotter. During a check of his microphone, he said, ”You can’t hear me?” That was followed by the N-word.
Bubba Wallace one week earlier ”rage quit” an official NASCAR iRacing event televised live nationally and his sponsor fired him immediately. Wallace had been wrecked, and, fed up, quit the game and admitted it was out of anger on Twitter. Blue-Emu, a topical pain reliever who had sponsored Wallace for the virtual race and has an association with him for real, replied to the tweet firing Wallace.
It was not clear Monday morning what fallout there could be for Larson, who was parked during the race Wallace quit a week earlier by iRacing officials for intentionally wrecking another driver.
Larson is half Japanese – his grandparents spent time in an interment camp in California during World War II – and he climbed from short track racing into NASCAR through its ”Drive for Diversity” program. He is the only driver of Japanese descent to win a major NASCAR race.
Larson, in his seventh full season racing at NASCAR’s top Cup level, is in the final year of his contract with Chip Ganassi Racing. He was at the top of the list of a crowded free agent field when the circuit was suspended four races into the season as sports stopped during the coronavirus crisis.
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