Jeff Gluck

USA TODAY Sports

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — On Sunday, Kyle Larson will complete NASCAR's best rookie season in eight years.

He came into the Sprint Cup Series with a wave of hype, built on praise from drivers such as three-time champion Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, a four-time titlist, who raved about Larson's ability on dirt tracks.

Larson's average finish this season is 14.2, which ranks eighth in the series (ahead of championship contender Denny Hamlin) and he has eight top-five finishes (double the number of another championship contender, Ryan Newman).

As Larry David might say: Pretty, pretty good.

Incredibly, some morons out there failed to see this coming. Last summer, one clown from a national publication warned Chip Ganassi Racing was taking a "perilous risk with a young career" by rushing Larson into the Cup Series too soon.

"Is the 21-year-old ready for the big leagues?" the writer asked. "Though he might very well have the potential and talent to be one of NASCAR's greats himself someday, it seems awfully hasty to promote him to prime time."

Larson remembered this, of course, since that line — and the predictions Austin Dillon would thump him for rookie of the year — look awfully silly now.

"It's nice to prove some of the doubters wrong," Larson told reporters Friday with a grin. "Even Gluck. It's nice to prove him wrong."

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Who, me?

Yes, it's true. I was the idiot who completely whiffed on the Larson prediction. I was wrong about whether he was ready for Sprint Cup, and any ridicule that comes with missing it so badly is earned.

My bad.

It looks pretty stupid now, doesn't it? Larson needed another year of Nationwide about as much as I needed to write this column on a typewriter.

Here's a guy who is going to make the Chase and win some races next year — and the year after that, and after that, and … well, you get the point.

"He's a superstar, there's no doubt about that," Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace said Friday. "He's the real deal."

How did I blow it? Well, it had been awhile since anyone was able to climb into a car as a rookie and immediately perform so well. I figured no one — no matter the talent — could quickly master stock car racing without the proper experience.

Larson's first pavement stock car race was in 2012. World-class drivers — including his predecessor in the No. 42 car, Juan Pablo Montoya — couldn't solve stock cars despite far more experience.

Larson did it, though, and now it's clear he'll be a force to be reckoned with for the next couple decades.

"He's going to win races and he's going to win championships in the right situation," Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett said.

Denny Hamlin had a great rookie campaign in 2006 (two wins, 12.5 average finish), but even now-star drivers have seemed to struggle in their first full season since then. Joey Logano's average finish was 20.0 in his first year. Brad Keselowski's first full season? An average finish of 22.4 with no top-five finishes and two top-10s.

So Larson (17 top-10 finishes) deserves a lot of credit for quickly adapting to the most competitive form of racing in North America.

"The first half of the season, it took me time to get over those little rookie curves and things," he said. "But then the second half, I felt like I'm pretty comfortable in the Cup Series and ran really well.

"I feel like I belong here."

He certainly does — and he did from the start.

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck

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