On his quest to become a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Kyle Larson has delivered a decisive blow.
It’s not over just yet, with Martinsville and Homestead left to contest in the next two weeks, but after a mind-boggling recovery on the final lap of Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, the driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet finds himself on the fast track to hoisting the Bill France Cup.
After managing to successfully avoid the late-race carnage that came in the form of two multi-car wrecks, Larson led the field, approximately 23 drivers strong, to the white flag with the race-lead, but off Turn 2, was quickly shucked into the middle line and shuffled outside of the top-10 by Austin Hill. In that moment, Larson’s championship rivals (most of whom were in the garage with wounded vehicles) breathed a sigh of relief.
Entering Turn 3 on the final lap (Lap 189), Kyle Larson was eleventh.
With a shove from Ross Chastain, he moved into eighth at the exit of Turn 4.
If the start-finish line was in the position it sits at Daytona (the middle of the tri-oval), the No. 5 would be fifth.
But, at the checkered flag, Larson was leading, 0.041 seconds ahead of William Byron.
“I don’t know. I got really lucky with kind of how everything worked out there. I was so, like, edgy in one and two with the 33 pushing me, he was really helping me, but I couldn’t add wheel. Kind of wandered me up the track,” Larson said about the last lap.
“He got underneath me. No fault at all to him. He was helping me great all day as well as all my Chevy, GM partners. Really got to thank them for working with me all day. I really felt it. Definitely the best speedway race I’ve ever had because of it. Thanks to all of them. Yeah, I was pissed at myself off of two. I’m like hands off the wheel, just mad. Then all of a sudden, like, I don’t know, everything just opened up off of four. Almost crashed into three, just able to keep my momentum up.
“Unbelievable way to get my first speedway win. Cool to have my family here. I don’t think they’ve been for any of my wins this year, here in the Cup car.”
While every single one of his six championship rivals sustained damage, or faltered in some way, Kyle Larson came out of Talladega squeaky-clean, with a 73-point advantage over Denny Hamlin, heading into the final two events of the season at Martinsville and Homestead.
To quote Kyle Larson; “Holy shit, the points are great. Fuck yeah.”
William Byron finished in the second position, marking a 1-2 for Hendrick Motorsports; the first time that’s happened in the NASCAR Cup Series since World Wide Technology Raceway in September. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. was leading in the middle of the tri-oval but had to settle for third place with HYAK Motorsports.
Ross Chastain, somehow, rebounded from being a lap down most of the race to drive into the fourth position at the checkered flag, with Cole Custer rounding out the top-five for Haas Factory Team. Carson Hocevar was sixth, followed by Todd Gilliland in seventh, a wounded Denny Hamlin in eighth, and Alex Bowman and Michael McDowell rounding out the top-10.
Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, and Ryan Blaney – the five drivers that entered Talladega within shouting distance of the championship – had horrific afternoons.
Briscoe was involved in a Lap 183 wreck exiting the tri-oval that saw Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse slide on his roof down the racetrack. That wreck was the second multi-car incident to impact the championship, with the first happening at Lap 131 and involving Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick.
Christopher Bell was the first of the championship contenders to run into issues when, coming to pit road in Stage 1, he got squirrely, spun out and hit the inside SAFER Barrier, ending any chance the No. 20 Toyota Camry XSE had at being competitive throughout the day. The Norman, Oklahoma-native finished 35th, 22 laps down.
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to the half-mile paperclip of Martinsville for the penultimate event of the season in the XFINITY 500. Coverage will commence on Sunday, November 1 at 2:00 PM ET on NBC.
