Rolex 24 at Daytona: Kyle Kirkwood enters 2024 after topsy-turvy 2023 in IndyCar racing
DAYTONA BEACH — There was a time when Kyle Kirkwood would tell folks he was from Jupiter, and they’d chuckle and assume he was attempting some form of interplanetary humor.
Jupiter was always on the map of South Florida, but in recent years it’s also entered the consciousness of sports fans, not because of Kirkwood but due to a laundry list of golfing royalty (Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy among them) who began calling it home.
Kirkwood, however, is an actual Jupiter native, and he’s on his way to proving golf carts aren’t the only form of four-wheeled transportation favored in that area of Palm Beach County.
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“When you think about it, Florida in general is probably the best place to grow up for racing,” says Kirkwood, who makes his fourth Rolex 24 start this weekend at Daytona — all four with Vasser Sullivan Racing, all four in a GTD Lexus.
“Growing up, I was in a go-kart for 40 weekends out of the year, racing in Florida,” he says. “There are so many karting tracks in the state — Palm Beach, Jacksonville, Orlando, Homestead, Ocala, Fort Myers. There are tracks all over Florida I was always traveling to when I was in karts.”
And if you grow up racing karts in Florida — all of the U.S., actually — the ultimate goal is IndyCar racing, which Kirkwood reached two years ago at age 23. IndyCar is also where Kirkwood, driving for Andretti Autosport, is figuratively — and quickly — putting himself on the map.
He did that with his first IndyCar win last April at the Long Beach Grand Prix, and his second four months later on the Nashville street course.
But between those two wins is when Kirkwood gathered the most attention from the casual IndyCar followers, those whose collective focus generally centers on that mammoth spectacle each May in Indianapolis.
Kirkwood finished his second Indy 500 upside-down on Lap 184, and once upright, he was suddenly dominating the conversation. Replays from the cockpit camera showed Kirkwood along for the ride on his open-air roof, reacting with relative calm, in spite of the wall of sparks outside the left side of his upended car.
Kyle Kirkwood was cleared and released after this SCARY crash in the Indy 500! #INDY500
📺 NBC and @peacockpic.twitter.com/CnDlmxQEzS— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 28, 2023
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Two pieces of great fortune saved the day, and not just for Kirkwood. First, one of Kirkwood’s rear wheels broke from its tether and became a missile that sailed just beyond the end of packed grandstands in Turn 2.
Next, Kirkwood exited his car unscathed.
“The only thing that happened to me, the only reason they put me on a stretcher, I hit my knees on the steering column when I went over,” he says. “They weren’t even bruised. The pain went away 10 minutes later.”
The attention didn’t go away, however, as Kirkwood was on national TV the next morning recounting the scary crash. In racing, where team sponsorships and marketing are a huge part of the equation, he was encouraged to make the most of the occasion.
“There are obviously a lot of negatives from it, but I got so much publicity for that,” he says. “Just a ton of publicity for it. They were telling me, make some positives out of this negative.”
From the vantage point of a brand new year, Kirkwood is happy he can look back on 2023 for something other than his topsy-turvy Indy ordeal.
“Having those two wins under my belt …” he says, “we can definitely look at that as a positive.”
Kirkwood co-drives the No. 14 Lexus this weekend, in the GTD Pro class, with Jack Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat and Mike Conway. The car was second-fastest among GTD cars in this past Sunday's qualifying.
When is the Rolex 24?
Start time: 1:40 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 27
End time: 1:40 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 28
How to watch: All 24 hours on Peacock. 1:30-2:30 p.m. (NBC). 2:30-8 p.m. (USA). 10 p.m.-midnight (USA). 6 a.m.-noon (USA). Noon-2 p.m. (NBC)
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Rolex 24, IndyCar racer, Florida native Kyle Kirkwood upbeat, upright
