'Kyle Larson vs. The Double' review: A compelling doc on NASCAR star's racing letdown

Kyle Larson said he was nervous to see how the documentary was going to come together, but he enjoyed reliving the experience. Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images Share articleWhen race car driver Kyle Larson crashed out of last year’s Coca-Cola 600, ending two years of failed attempts at completing the famed Memorial Day Weekend “Double,” the director of the documentary chronicling his effort had a fleeting fear: hundreds of hours spent gathering footage might not be enough to justify a film. The director, Cynthia Hill, originally planned to make a movie about Larson’s Double in 2024, when he attempted to be the first driver in a decade to race both the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s Coke 600 on the same day. But when a severe thunderstorm ruined Larson’s initial try, the driver needed to try again in 2025. So Hill and her crew returned to keep filming, only to see their star endure disappointment yet again — this time wrecking his car in both races and failing to finish either. So as Hill ran to Larson’s garage stall after his crash in last May’s 600 in Charlotte, she was justifiably concerned the project might all be for naught. Hill followed Larson into the team hauler and saw the anguish on his face as he processed another heartbreak. Finally, Larson looked up at the director and said: “This is going to be one of those movies with no happy ending.” “Well, where’s the happy ending?” he said. That’s the question at the heart of “Kyle Larson vs. The Double,” which premieres Thursday on Prime Video. Larson, a generational American motorsports talent, made two Double attempts that felt full of hope for an unthinkable history: Not only could he complete every mile of both, but perhaps even win both. Then it turned sour, making a film a potential salvage operation, barring a creative angle. But Hill was able to find one. The morning after the second failed Double, Hill fielded calls from executives and team members concerned over the film’s viability. But by then, she was no longer worried. “We went on one hell of a journey with this man, and no matter what the outcome was, I felt like it was a story that was very much worth telling,” Hill said. In 2024, during the first attempt, a heavy storm delayed the Indy 500 several hours and forced Larson to choose between the races. The NASCAR star opted to run Indy and show up late for NASCAR’s 600; except just at the exact moment he arrived, the same storm hit the Charlotte track and ultimately shortened the race. He never got to turn a single lap in his NASCAR ride. Then, in 2025, another rain delay at Indy put Larson in position to have to potentially park his car and leave the 500 early — NASCAR implemented a “Larson Rule” after 2024 that would have heavily penalized him for missing one of its races. Except it didn’t matter, since he crashed before the halfway point of the 500 anyway. That’s why, during a scene late in the film, Larson sums it up thusly: “I don’t mind it being a sad documentary. It’s good to show it’s tough. What I do is tough, and it’s not always perfect.” The thing is, Larson has often made racing look easy. He is known as the most talented driver in NASCAR today and has also been considered the world’s best in dirt sprint cars and midgets. But the documentary shows he’s “human after all,” as NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon puts it. “Obviously, I didn’t like to relive the parts I didn’t do a good job at,” Larson said. “But ultimately, it made the documentary better because it had the drama and emotion and stress of the logistics. “They did a really good job of taking three years of stuff and a result we didn’t expect or want and making it a great movie.” The film contains many scenes and private conversations that even those who religiously followed Larson’s Double attempts would not have seen or heard. There are internal debates about logistics and scenarios, team reactions to Larson’s missteps, and a variety of family moments that show both the human joy and toll of embarking on an ambitious attempt. Hill also weaves Larson’s life story into the picture as an ongoing thread, using mother Janet Larson’s extensive collection of home videos (she filmed all of her son’s races and more, which have now come in handy). “I remember being a kid, like, ‘Dude, get the camera out of my face, Mom!'” Kyle Larson said. “But now I love it. I appreciate it. It’s so cool I can go back and watch that stuff.” The documentary also touches on Larson’s use of a racial slur in 2020 that felt like a potential career-ender at the time; Kyle and his wife, Katelyn, discuss the incident and its aftermath in a more in-depth way than has been seen in the years since it happened. “It’s definitely uncomfortable having to relive the 2020 part and talk about it,” Kyle said. “But that’s a massive part of my story, and it needs to be touched on — especially in this film.” That’s the attitude Hill encountered with the Larsons for the entirety of the process. Before committing to the project, Hill sat down with Kyle and pressed him on his level of willingness to go all in. “Are you really prepared for us to follow you everywhere?” she asked. “Because we’ve got to do it the right way — and that means we’re there for the good, the bad and the ugly, whatever that is. “He said, ‘Yeah, I’m in it.’ And he was. He never denied us access.” Even in the lowest moments, the cameras stayed on. As a result, viewers are shown a painful image of his stone-faced expression after his second Indy 500 attempt, in which he crashed after 91 laps. And there’s also a peek into the Larsons’ family life, with Katelyn juggling three young children and Kyle struggling to find the balance of being present while pursuing his own racing dreams. “It’s going to be amazing to look back on and even show the kids, ‘Dad went through a hard time,'” Katelyn said. “And I think it’s a great lesson for our kids now that they’ve started racing, that not everything is perfect, and you have to work really hard. “Not everything is going to go the right way all the time, but you’ve got to just dig deep and keep going. I use Kyle as an example in that scenario a lot for the kids with their racing.” Almost all of the film crew were women, and it helped Katelyn and the children drop their guard. It felt like the women behind the cameras were “close friends,” Katelyn said, and she pretended the cameras weren’t on in order to continue with their normal lives. “I knew it would make for a relatable experience for people,” she said. Kyle says he wasn’t worried about how his family would be portrayed; he wanted to show people “how normal and not perfect” their life is. “We’re all victims of judging celebrities or athletes by what you see on TV, in their job and in their element,” he said. “But getting to see how they are at home is how you get a real opinion of who they are.” The logistics were a hectic, frantic challenge in themselves. Not only did Larson need to get from place to place — like car to helicopter to plane — but so did the filmmakers. There wasn’t room for Hill on the helicopter to the airport after Larson was leaving Indianapolis, for example, so she had to drive herself to the airport — with a police escort — to make sure she could still reach the plane in time. The crew made all their movements with their gear strapped on their backs and had to walk a fine line of documenting it all without being in the way or risking holding up any of the travel. “I was nervous to see how it was going to come together,” Larson said. “It wasn’t a positive result. But the way they pieced it together, it was fun for me to relive it. “You get so stuck on thinking about all the negative side of doing the Double and the race days and how those went with the weather, it was a good reminder for me watching it how much fun I had and how much fun it was to have my family there.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms