Jeff Gordon says Kyle Larson’s attempt at The Double was the kind of challenge that starts with a dream and turns into a race against logistics, timing and talent. The documentary about that effort, titled The Double, is set to be released on Amazon Prime on May 21.
Gordon, 54, said the idea grew out of Larson’s ambition to be one of the best race car drivers in the world and to race in Indy, which meant trying to run the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 500 on the same day. Once Larson showed interest, Gordon said Hendrick Motorsports began lining up the people and the plan needed to make it happen. He said Rick Hendrick likes to make dreams come true, and that helped move the project from a wish to a reality.
The film follows Larson, the reigning Cup Series champion, as he became the fifth driver to attempt The Double. It also captures why the effort drew so much attention: Larson is a full-time NASCAR driver, not an IndyCar regular, and that made the challenge unusually difficult. Gordon said it was worth documenting because so few people have ever tried it.
“I think it starts from a kid’s dream of wanting to be one of the best race car drivers in the world, and has a successful NASCAR career going and always dreamed about racing in Indy,” Gordon said. He added that the only way to do that was to take on both races in the same day, and that once Larson was interested, the team started building the logistics around him.
That perspective carries extra weight coming from Gordon, a legendary NASCAR driver who raced full-time for Hendrick Motorsports from 1993 until 2015. He won four Cup Series championships, three Daytona 500s and completed three career grand slams, finishing with 93 career wins, the most in modern NASCAR history from 1972 to the present. His own career helped fuel NASCAR’s rise in the 1990s and 2000s, and he now sits in the vice chairman’s seat at Hendrick Motorsports.
Gordon said Larson’s versatility made him stand out from the start. “What separates him is being a guy that races all kinds of different cars and has success behind the wheel of all of them,” he said. “When you have that kind of mindset and that determination and willingness to do that, then he’s a perfect candidate for it.” Gordon pointed to Larson’s first attempt in 2024, when he finished 18th in The Double, as proof that the idea was more than a stunt.
Larson has since said he is unlikely to do The Double again. He said he would only return to the Indy 500 if he could devote his full attention to it, and that another try would likely not come until after his NASCAR career ends. That leaves the documentary as more than a race recap. It is a record of one of the sport’s rarest experiments, and of a driver who tried to do what most competitors never attempt at all.
“This is really special, not many people have ever done this before, we should document it,” Gordon said. “And thankfully, we did because it was just a journey.”
