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Chastain grabs first Cup victory in a wild finish at COTA

From losing the lead to earning it back with the finish in sight, Ross Chastain etched his name as a first-time NASCAR Cup Series winner after outdueling AJ Allmendinger and Alex Bowman in an overtime attempt to capture the second annual EchoPark Automotive Texas Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, March 27.

The 29-year-old Chastain from Alva, Florida, led four times for a race-high 31 of 69 over-scheduled laps as he bumped and moved Allmendinger out of the racing groove along with Bowman to reclaim the lead that was briefly taken from him through the final two corners and recorded the long-awaited, first win in NASCAR’s premier series for himself and for Trackhouse Racing in the team’s second season in competition.

With on-track qualifying occurring on Saturday, Ryan Blaney claimed his second NASCAR Cup Series pole of the year and the eighth of his career after posting a pole-winning speed at 92,759 mph. Joining him on the front row was Daniel Suarez, who posted a fast qualifying lap at 92.741 mph.

Prior to the event, Michael McDowell, AJ Allmendinger, Erik Jones, Loris Hezemans, Boris Said, Josh Bilicki and Joey Hand dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments to their respective machines. In addition, Andy Lally was assessed a pass-through penalty at the start of the event for failing the pre-qualifying technical inspection process three times.

When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Blaney and Suarez dueled for the top spot through the first two turns until Blaney just managed to peak ahead entering a series of left and right-hand turns (Turns 3 through Turn 10). With the field fanning out before settling in a single-file line for the turns, Suarez then made his move beneath Blaney and took the lead in Turn 11.

Through the 3.41-mile, 20-turn circuit, and when the field returned to the start/finish line, Suarez led the first lap followed by Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Cole Custer and Joey Logano. Denny Hamlin was in sixth ahead of rookie Austin Cindric, Justin Haley, Alex Bowman and Chase Briscoe.

During the following lap, Loris Hezemans was penalized for cutting the corners through the esses. Meanwhile, Suarez continued to lead by more than a second over Blaney while Reddick, Custer and Hamlin occupied the top five.

Through the first five scheduled laps, Suarez was leading by more than a second over Blaney followed by Reddick, Logano and Cindric while Custer, Alex Bowman, Hamlin, Haley and Ross Chastain were in the top 10. Christopher Bell was in 11th followed by teammate Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Chase Briscoe and Kurt Busch while Chase Elliott, Bubba Wallace, Kevin Harvick, Chris Buescher and William Byron occupied the top 20. AJ Allmendinger, winner of Saturday’s Xfinity event in Austin, was in 21st ahead of Martin Truex Jr., Austin Dillon, rookie Todd Gilliland and Erik Jones while rookie Harrison Burton, Ty Dillon, Aric Almirola, Kaz Grala and Joey Hand were in the top 30. Michael McDowell was back in 31st ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Brad Keselowski, Corey LaJoie, Josh Bilicki, Cody Ware, Andy Lally, Loris Hezemans and Boris Said, who was also assessed a penalty for cutting the corner.

Five laps later and by the Lap 10 mark, Suarez remained as the leader by nearly seven-tenths of a second over Blaney while third-place Reddick trailed by more than four seconds. Cindric was in fourth while Bowman was in fifth ahead of Logano, Custer, Chastain, Larson and Haley. Meanwhile, Kyle Busch fell all the way back to 28th after spinning his No. 18 Skittles Toyota TRD Camry in Turn 12 following contact with Chase Elliott’s No. 9 LLumar Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

Another few laps later, pits stops under green commenced as Harvick, LaJoie, Almirola, Hamlin, Joey Hand, Allmendinger, Buescher, Kyle Busch, Truex, Bell, Wallace, Byron, McDowell, Gilliland, Ty Dillon, Erik Jones, Kurt Busch and Grala pitted. Chastain, Cindric and Custer also pitted prior to pit road closing for the conclusion of the first stage. During the pit stops, Austin Dillon was penalized for an unrolled tire violation while Gilliland was also penalized for an equipment interference. Meanwhile, Suarez remained as the leader.

When the first stage concluded on Lap 15, Suarez cruised his No. 99 CommScope Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to his first stage victory of the season. Blaney settled in second followed by Bowman, Logano, Larson, Haley, Elliott, Briscoe, Harrison Burton and Cindric.

Under the stage break, some led by Blaney pitted while the rest led by Cindric remained on the track.

The second stage started on Lap 17 as Cindric and Reddick occupied the front row. At the start, Cindric launched ahead with the top spot through the first turn while Ross Chastain challenged and overtook Reddick for second place. As the field fanned out and scrambled through the first turn, disaster struck for Daniel Suarez as he got hit and spun, thus sustaining a flat left-rear tire as he was left to limp his car back to pit road under a cautious pace. Then as the field navigated through the left and right-hand turns (Turns 3 and 10), Larson spun, but the race proceeded under green as both Larson and Suarez pitted.

Back at the front and through the long straightaway between Turns 11 and 12, Chastain and Cindric dueled dead even for the lead while Reddick lurked behind. As Chastain tried to take the lead through Turn 12, Cindric fought through Turns 13 and 14 as he retained the lead while Reddick challenged Chastain for second. Meanwhile, Hamlin moved his No. 11 FedEx Toyota TRD Camry into fourth place followed by Custer, Bell, Allmendinger, Byron, Buescher and Truex.

By Lap 20, Cindric was leading by half a second over Chastain while Reddick, Hamlin and Allmendinger were in the top five. Custer was in sixth ahead of Byron, Bell, Truex and Kyle Busch. Meanwhile, McDowell was assessed a drive-through penalty through pit road for cutting a corner while Larson and Suarez were back in 33rd and 39th following their incident.

Five laps later, Cindric stabilized his advantage by six-tenths of a second over Chastain while Allmendinger, Reddick and Hamlin occupied the top five. By then. Cody Ware and Loris Hezemans were penalized for cutting the course.

Nearing the Lap 30 mark and the conclusion of the second stage, another round of pit stops under green commenced as Buescher pitted along with Bell, Truex, Erik Jones, Harvick, Elliott, Bowman, Briscoe, Haley, Joey Hand, Larson, LaJoie, Gilliland and McDowell. Meanwhile, Chastain issued another on-track challenge on Cindric for the lead entering Turn 11. Just as Chastain used the outside lane to overtake Cindric for the lead entering Turn 19, both pitted along with Reddick, Allmendinger, Byron. During the pit stops, LaJoie and Byron were both penalized for speeding on pit road.

Back on track, Hamlin, who came into this weekend in 25th place in the standings, inherited the lead followed by teammate Kyle Busch and Logano

When the second stage concluded on Lap 30, Hamlin notched his first stage victory of the season. Teammate Kyle Busch settled in second ahead of Logano, Blaney, Almirola, Austin Dillon, Harrison Burton, Chastain, Cindric and Bubba Wallace.

Under the stage break, some led by Hamlin pitted while the rest led by Team Penske’s Logano and Blaney remained on the track. During the pit stops, Ty Dillon was penalized for improper fueling.

With 36 laps remaining, the final stage started under green. At the start and with the field fanning out, Logano bobbled and locked up the brakes of his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang entering the first turn as he went off the course, which allowed Chastain to rocket back to the lead followed by Allmendinger, Cindric and Reddick while Blaney fell back to fifth.

A lap later, Cindric, who was in third place, spun his No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang off the front nose of Reddick’s No. 8 3CHI Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Turn 10 and was narrowly dodged by the field as the race proceeded under green. In addition, Joey Hand spun in Turn 1 following contact with Almirola. Not long after, however, the caution flew due to debris reported in Turn 11. By then, Chastain was leading by eight-tenths of a second over Allmendinger.

Under caution, names like Logano, Cindric, Stenhouse, Grala, Cody Ware and Joey Hand pitted while the rest led by Chastain remained on the track. During the pit stops, Stenhouse was penalized for speeding on pit road.

With 32 laps remaining, the race proceeded under green. At the start, Chastain fended off Allmendinger through the first turn to retain the lead while the field fanned out entering the second turns and the series of left and right-hand turns. As the field continued to scramble for positions entering Turns 10, 11 and 12, Briscoe moved into third place followed by Reddick and Blaney while Elliott started to make his charge to the front in sixth place.

When the field returned to the start/finish line, Chastain continued to lead by half a second over ex-teammate Allmendinger followed by Briscoe, Reddick and Elliott. Meanwhile, Blaney was in sixth ahead of Custer, Truex, Bowman and Larson as the field continued to duke for positions.

Then with 28 laps remaining, the caution returned when Erik Jones stalled his No. 43 Focus Factor Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Turn 11 as he needed a wrecker to return to pit road. Earlier, Christopher Bell pitted and had the hood of his No. 20 DeWalt Toyota TRD Camry up as his crew went to work to diagnose steering issues.

Under caution, the entire field pitted and Chastain exited with the top spot followed by Briscoe, Reddick, Bowman, Allmendinger and Kyle Busch.

Down to the final 25 scheduled laps, the race restarted under green At the start, Chastain dueled with Briscoe and briefly went off the course with Briscoe in Turn 1 until Chastain retained the lead entering Turn 2 and through the series of left and right-hand turns (Turns 3 through 10). Then in Turn 11, Briscoe moved his No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang out in front of Chastain’s No. 1 ONX Homes/iFly Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 until Chastain fought back from Turns 12 to Turn 19. Meanwhile, Logano spun in Turn 12.

Back at the front in Turn 20, both Chastain and Briscoe remained dead even until Briscoe managed to clear Chastain entering the first turn. Not long after, however, the caution returned when the left-rear wheel off of Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Leidos Toyota TRD Camry came off, resulting with Wallace stopping on track in Turn 17 and needing assistance to return to pit road.

Under caution, some like Logano pitted while the rest led by Briscoe remained on the track.

With 22 laps remaining, the race proceeded under green. At the start and with the field fanning out, Briscoe retained the lead through the first turn ahead of Chastain while Allmendinger was in third ahead of Reddick. Then in Turn 11, Chastain made his move and overtook Briscoe for the lead while Allmendinger quickly challenged Briscoe for the runner-up spot.

Under the final 20 scheduled laps, Chastain was leading by seven-tenths of a second over Briscoe while third-place Allmendinger trailed by more than a second. Meanwhile, Reddick and Kyle Busch battled for fourth place until the latter prevailed while Bowman also moved into the top five. Elliott, Cindric, Hamlin and Truex were in the top 10 followed by Larson, Blaney, Harvick, Byron, Custer, McDowell, Austin Dillon, Haley, Almirola and Stenhouse.

A few laps later, Ty Dillon spun in Turn 11 while Boris Said was penalized for cutting the course. Back at the front of the field, Chastain continued to lead by four-tenths of a second over Briscoe, who started to close in on Chastain for the top spot, while third-place Allmendinger trailed by more than a second.

A lap later, Briscoe briefly went off course in Turn 11, which allowed Allmendinger to move into second place while Chastain continued to lead. Bowman remained in fourth place while teammate Elliott was in fifth following an earlier battle with Kyle Busch. In addition, Reddick was back in seventh ahead of Cindric, Blaney and Larson.

Then with 15 laps remaining, the caution flew when Stenhouse’s No. 47 SunnyD Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 came to a stop past Turn 11. Prior to the caution, names like Truex, Harvick, Almirola, Custer, LaJoie, Grala, Ty Dillon and Erik Jones pitted.

Under caution, some like Hamlin, Gilliland, Larson, Kurt Busch, Byron, Austin Dillon, Logano, Brad Keselowski and Bilicki pitted while the rest led by Chastain remained on the track.

Down to the final 12 scheduled laps, the race restarted under green. At the start, Briscoe bolted his car beneath Chastain’s in a three-wide bid for the lead while Allmendinger challenged on the outside lane. Chastain, however, fought back as he retained the lead entering the second turn while Reddick rocketed to second place. Then through the series of left and right-hand turns (Turns 3 to 10), Briscoe went off the course and was initially penalized for his maneuver as he blended back in seventh place behind Kyle Busch. After NASCAR deemed that he was forced off the course, however, the penalty was withdrawn.

Back at the front, Chastain remained as the leader over Reddick, Allmendinger and the field that continued to scatter and jostle for positions. Behind, Cindric and Grala spun in Turn 11. While the race remained under green following Cindric’s incident, the caution returned when fluid was reported on the frontstretch.

Under caution, Briscoe pitted from seventh place for four fresh tires along with Harrison Burton and Cindric while the rest led by Chastain remained on the track.

With nine laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start and through the uphill climb to the first turn, Chastain managed to fend off Allmendinger by the end of Turn 2, even running him off the racing groove, to retain the lead while Cole Custer spun. Following the series of left and right-hand turns (Turns 3 through Turn 10), Joey Hand collided into Hamlin in Turn 11, sending Hamlin around. Five turns later, Grala sent Almirola sideways. In spite of all the incidents, the race remained under green.

Back at the front, Chastain was leading by two-tenths of a second over Allmendinger while Reddick was in third place ahead of Elliott and Bowman. Behind, Kyle Busch was in sixth ahead of Blaney, Truex, Bell and McDowell. While Allmendinger kept occupying Chastain’s rear view mirrors to close-quarters racing, Chastain was able to maintain the lead and not let his former teammate overtake him.

Just then, the caution flew with six laps remaining due to Loris Hezemans coming to a stop in Turn 3. At the moment of caution, Chastain had managed to maintain a steady advantage over Allmendinger.

Down to the final three laps of the event, the race restarted under green. At the start, Chastain and Allmendinger dueled for the lead entering the first turn until Reddick made a bold three-wide move through the first turn to take the lead. Shortly after, however, the caution returned and the race was sent into overtime due to a wreck that involved Kurt Busch, Larson and Logano in Turn 2.

At the start of the first overtime attempt and with the field fanning out up the hill, Chastain reassumed the lead and Allmendinger moved into second place followed by Bowman while Reddick fell back to fourth. Behind, the field scrambled for positions.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Chastain was leading by nearly a second over Allmendinger while third-place Bowman trailed by more than a second. Through the esses and Turn 11, Chastain maintained the lead despite having Allmendinger and Bowman close in for the lead and the win. Behind, Kyle Busch spun through the esses while the race proceeded under green.

Then in Turn 12, Allmendinger gained a huge run to pull himself behind Chastain’s bumper. After Chastain briefly went wide in Turns 13 and 14, Allmendinger seized an opportunity through Turns 15 and 16 and ran into the rear of Chastain, which sent Chastain wide as Allmendinger took the lead while Bowman challenged Chastain for the runner-up spot.

Through Turns 17 and 18, Chastain bumped Allmendinger as Bowman bolted his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to the lead. With Bowman in brief control, Chastain bumped and got Allmendinger loose as he came darting into Bowman and both collided in Turn 19, resulting with Allmendinger spinning and Bowman running off the course. This allowed Chastain to reassume the lead entering Turn 20. With no competition lurking behind, Chastain was able to navigate his way through the final frontstretch and claim the first checkered flag for himself and for Trackhouse Racing owned by Justin Marks and Pitbull in NASCAR’s premier series.

With the victory, Chastain, who came into Austin with three consecutive top-three results, became the 201st different competitor to win a NASCAR Cup Series event along with becoming the third first-time winner and the sixth different winner through the first six scheduled events of the 2022 Cup season. He also became the 39th different competitor to achieve a victory across NASCAR’s top three national touring series (Camping World Truck, Xfinity and Cup) with his last victory occurring at Pocono Raceway in the Truck Series in July 2019. In addition to the driver and organization, the Austin victory produced a first NASCAR win for crew chief Phil Surgen.

Upon returning to the frontstretch for his victorious burnout and salute to the fans, Chastain reignited his trademark victory by smashing a watermelon before being greeted by team owner Justin Marks.

“That’s insane to go up against some of the best with AJ [Allmendinger],” Chastain said on FOX. “I know he’s gonna be upset with me, but we raced hard. Both of us. He owes me one, but when it comes to a Cup win, man, I can’t let that go down without a fight…People don’t know how good this group is. I can’t believe [owner] Justin Marks hired me to drive this car.”

“[The watermelon]’s never tasted sweeter, I gotta tell you,” Chastain added. “I don’t know. I don’t know how we got back by. I was so worried about AJ on the second-to-last restart that I let Tyler [Reddick] drive by both of us. AJ’s so good. I’ve learned so much from him. And then it was like, ‘How do I go beat the guy?’ He taught me so much. I’ve learned so much from so many people…It crossed my mind like we’re not gonna win. We’re on old tires, but I couldn’t think that way. I thought neutral. Chevrolet and everything they do for me, gave me the tools to try to go and execute and we did it.”

In the midst of the chaos, Bowman came home in second place, more than a second behind Chastain, while Allmendinger ended up in 33rd place following his spin.

“We had a really fast Ally Camaro,” Bowman said. “I’ve really been trying to do a better job as a race car driver at these road courses and I felt like from where we started in the weekend, I accomplished that. Proud of [crew chief] Greg [Ives] and all the guys. [I] Hate that we didn’t come away with the win, but happy for Ross getting his first win. It’s been a crap weekend, so I’m ready to get home and see [my] dogs and move on to next weekend. Glad to come away with a second-place finish.”

“At the end of the day, we all gotta look at ourselves in the mirror and if you’re okay with it, you’re okay with it,” Allmendinger said. “Each person’s different. More than anything, proud of Kaulig Racing. The Action Industry Chevy was so fast. I think if we could’ve had just a long run, nobody was gonna touch us. Pit stops were great. Everybody at Kaulig Racing, all the men and women. It’s just lot of sleepless nights for them right now trying to just get these cars to the next race. I was doing everything I could to try to sweep the weekend for them. We were that close. At the end of the day, each person’s gotta make the move that they’re comfortable with and that’s fine. At the end of the day, we know we had a shot to win the race. It’s tough to win a Cup race, so when you put yourself on a position to legitimately run upfront all day and have a shot to win it, it’s a pretty great day. Unfortunately, I needed about two more corners.”

Christopher Bell, who came into Circuit of the Americas in 29th place in the standings and with a best on-track result of 10th place, notched his first top-five result in third place while Elliott and Reddick finished in the top five.

Blaney, Truex, Cindric, Erik Jones and Austin Dillon recorded top-10 results.

There were 13 lead changes for nine different leaders. The race featured nine cautions for 13 laps.

With his fourth-place result, Chase Elliott continues to lead the regular season standings by 13 over Ryan Blaney, 23 over Joey Logano, 25 over Alex Bowman, 28 over Ross Chastain and 33 over William Byron.

Results.

1. Ross Chastain, 31 laps led

2. Alex Bowman

3. Christopher Bell

4. Chase Elliott

5. Tyler Reddick, two laps led

6. Ryan Blaney, one lap led

7. Martin Truex Jr.

8. Austin Cindric, 11 laps led

9. Erik Jones

10. Austin Dillon

11. Kevin Harvick

12. William Byron

13. Michael McDowell

14. Brad Keselowski

15. Justin Haley

16. Todd Gilliland

17. Harrison Burton

18. Denny Hamlin, three laps led, Stage 2 winner

19. Aric Almirola

20. Ty Dillon

21. Chris Buescher

22. Josh Bilicki

23. Cole Custer

24. Daniel Suarez, 15 laps led, Stage 1 winner

25. Kaz Grala

26. Boris Said

27. Cody Ware

28. Kyle Busch

29. Kyle Larson

30. Chase Briscoe, two laps led

31. Joey Logano, two laps led

32. Kurt Busch

33. AJ Allmendinger, one lap down, two laps led

34. Loris Hezemans – OUT, Rear gear

35. Joey Hand – OUT, Suspension

36. Corey LaJoie – OUT, Engine

37. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – OUT, Drivetrain

38. Bubba Wallace – OUT, Suspension

39. Andy Lally – OUT, Suspension

Next on the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is Richmond Raceway for a 400-mile feature in Richmond, Virginia. The event is scheduled to occur on Sunday, April 3, at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

March 27, 2022
Byron dominates for a wild Cup victory at the newly reconfigured Atlanta

In what William Byron summarized the competition at the newly reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway as a blend of intermediate and speedway style racing, the driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 put on a clinic and survived a chaotic afternoon to score a dominant victory in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta on Sunday, March 20.

The 24-year-old Byron from Charlotte, North Carolina, led eight times for a race-high 111 of the 325-scheduled laps, including the final 10, as he fended late charges from Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney and Ross Chastain to claim his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the 2022 season and become the fifth different winner through the first five scheduled events.

The starting lineup for the event was determined through the Performance Metrics formula based on four statistics: drivers’ results, owners’ race and points results and the fastest lap from the previous Cup event. With that, Chase Briscoe, who notched his first Cup career victory last weekend at Phoenix Raceway, started on pole position. Joining him on the front row was Ryan Blaney.

The use of the Performance Metrics formula occurred after rain canceled all on-track activities on Friday, which resulted with the Cup competitors receiving a single practice session on Saturday in place of on-track qualifying.

Prior to the event, Brad Keselowski dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments to his car along with rookie Harrison Burton, who dropped back due to his car failing pre-race inspection multiple times.

When the green flag waved and the race started, Briscoe and Blaney battled dead-even for the top spot with Blaney leading the first lap by 0.010 seconds. During the following lap, however, Briscoe muscled to the lead followed by Kyle Busch while Blaney settled in third ahead of Chase Elliott and Joey Logano.

Six laps later, Kyle Busch muscled his No. 18 M&M’s Toyota TRD Camry to the lead ahead of Briscoe. Behind, Blaney battled teammate Logano and Elliott for third place.

Through the first 10 laps of the event, Kyle Bush was leading ahead of Briscoe, Blaney, Elliott and Logano while Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick, Aric Almirola, Denny Hamlin and William Byron were in the top 10.

Soon after, a fierce battle for the lead ignited between Kyle Busch and Elliott with both former Cup champions refusing to relent and staying dead even for the top spot. While Briscoe tucked in behind Busch on the outside lane, Blaney settled behind Elliott on the inside lane.

By Lap 20 and with competition towards the front engaged in close-quarters racing, Kyle Busch was ahead by nearly a tenth of a second over Briscoe followed by Chastain, Hamlin and Elliott while Byron, Blaney, Justin Haley, Logano and Reddick were in the top 10.

Three laps later, the first caution flew when Noah Gragson, who was making his first Cup Series start with Kaulig Racing, got loose and wrecked hard against the Turns 1 and 2 outside wall. Under caution, some like Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman, Ty Dillon and David Ragan pitted while the rest led by Kyle Busch remained on the track.

When the race restarted under green on Lap 30, Chastain challenged Kyle Busch before the former overtook the latter during the following lap. Meanwhile, William Byron emerged towards the front as he moved into second place while Elliott tucked in fourth place behind Busch.

By Lap 35, Byron moved his No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 into the lead following a brief battle with Chastain as the field was locked two-by-wide through every turn.

When the competition caution flew on Lap 45, Chastain had just managed to overtake Byron to reassume the lead as the field settled in close-quarters racing. Under the competition caution, the leaders pitted and Blaney emerged with the lead following a two-tire stop. Prior to the restart, however, Blaney pitted again for four fresh tires and fuel. During the pit stops, Almirola spun after making contact with Erik Jones while Bubba Wallace nearly collided with Greg Biffle while trying to exit his pit stall. Meanwhile, Christopher Bell and Justin Haley were penalized for equipment violations while Kurt Busch was also penalized for a safety violation.

When the race restarted under green on Lap 51, Logano challenged Chastain for the lead, which he persevered until Chastain reassumed the lead on Lap 55. By then, the event featured 18 different lead changes for eight different leaders.

By Lap 60, Chastain was leading by a tenth of a second over Logano while Byron, Kyle Busch and Daniel Suarez were in the top five. Reddick was back in sixth ahead of Elliott, Alex Bowman, Hamlin and rookie Austin Cindric. By then, the top-22 competitors were separated by less than two seconds. During the following lap, however, the top-28 competitors were separated by less than two seconds.

Nearly five laps later, Logano issued another challenge and managed to overtake Chastain for the lead while Reddick started to gain ground on the front-runners.

On Lap 70, Chastain and Reddick dueled for the lead while Logano drifted back to eighth place. Byron, meanwhile, settled in third ahead of Hamlin and Kyle Busch.

Ten laps later and with the front-runners settling in a long single-file line, Chastain continued to lead ahead of Byron, Reddick, Hamlin and Kyle Busch while Suarez, Elliott, Logano, Austin Dillon, and Erik Jones were in the top 10. Bowman was in 11th ahead of Stenhouse, Cindric, Kurt Busch and Kyle Larson.

Then on Lap 94, the caution flew when the leader Chastain veered dead straight into the Turn 2 outside wall as a result of a flat right-rear tire to his No. 1 AdventHealth Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Under caution, a majority of the field including Logano pitted while 12 led by Byron remained on the track. During the pit stops, Ty Dillon was penalized for dragging his fuel can out of his pit stall. In addition, Chastain was penalized two laps for improper fueling while his crew repaired the damage to his car.

When the race restarted on Lap 100, Byron received a push from Austin Dillon to lead. Soon after, however, the caution returned when Kyle Busch got Austin Dillon loose, which resulted in Dillon colliding into the Turn 4 outside wall along with Busch. While the majority of the field fanned out to avoid Dillon and Busch, Ty Dillon and Chase Briscoe, both of whom were running towards the rear of the field, wrecked, knocking out both Dillon brothers from competition.

The multi-car wreck on the frontstretch was enough for the first stage scheduled on Lap 105 to conclude under caution as Byron captured his second stage victory of the season. Hamlin settled in second ahead of Suarez, Stenhouse, Erik Jones, Kurt Busch, Bowman, Reddick, Larson and Bell.

Under the stage break, 13 competitors led by Bell remained on the track while the rest pitted as Elliott exited first following a pit stop that only required fuel to his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

The second stage started on Lap 110 as Bell and Logano battled for the lead. With Bell persevering on the outside lane, Cindric moved into second place followed by Bubba Wallace while Logano drifted back to fourth alongside Michael McDowell. Behind, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick dueled for sixth place.

On Lap 122, Harvick emerged with the lead after overtaking Bell while Truex made his charge to the front and ahead of the pack. Three laps later, however, Truex led himself a lap before Logano reassumed the top spot. By then, the field fanned out to nearly three lanes with the front-runners scrambling to charge to the front.

On Lap 128, the No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota TRD Camry piloted by Kurt Busch was out in front while Reddick was muscling his way back to the front along with Blaney, Stenhouse and Daniel Suarez.

By Lap 140, Reddick reassumed the lead at the time when the event featured 15 different leaders. Not long after, however, Byron returned to the lead on Lap 144.

Just then on Lap 145, the caution flew for a multi-car wreck that started when Reddick, who was running in third place, got loose after blowing a right-rear tire entering Turn 4 before he was hit by Kurt Busch. With the field checking up and trying to dodge the chaos towards the front, Larson spun towards the infield after getting hit by Denny Hamlin along with Logano, Corey LaJoie as Cindric, Bowman, Cole Custer, rookie Todd Gilliland, Bell, Harrison Burton and McDowell were all involved.

Under caution, the field pitted and Byron retained the lead ahead of Harvick. During the pit stops, Truex was penalized for speeding on pit road along with Suarez, who pitted outside of his pit box.

When the race restarted on Lap 153, Harvick dueled against Byron in Turn 1 before he received a push from Blaney to clear the field with the lead. Behind, Blaney muscled into second place while Erik Jones and Aric Almirola battled for third place.

The caution, however, returned on Lap 156 due to debris on the frontstretch that came off of Reddick’s No. 8 3CHI Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Under caution, Larson, Truex, Harrison Burton and the Busch brothers pitted while the rest led by Harvick remained on the track.

When the race restarted on Lap 161, Harvick received a strong push from Blaney to retain the lead on the outside lane. When the field returned to the start/finish line, however, Byron fought back on the inside lane as Byron had Erik Jones pushing him for momentum.

At the halfway mark between Laps 162 and 163, Byron cleared the field with the lead while Harvick fought back in second. Blaney, Erik Jones and Almirola were in the top five followed by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Bell, Keselowski, Elliott, Justin Haley, Cindric, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Truex, Hamlin, Greg Biffle, Suarez, BJ McLeod and Larson. By then 27 of 37 starters were scored on the lead lap.

By Lap 175, Byron continued to lead ahead of Bell, Blaney and Stenhouse while Harvick was mired back in fifth.

Ten laps later, Stenhouse made his move to the lead followed by Blaney as Byron settled in third. In addition, Brad Keselowski emerged in the top five while Harvick drifted back to 10th.

Then on Lap 200, the caution flew when the leader Stenhouse blew a tire and slipped front of the field before he spun below the apron and collided against Cindric, who tried to dodge the incident below the apron. While some like the new leader Blaney dodged the carnage, others including Bell, Harvick and Jones wrecked or sustained damage.

Under caution, names like Daniel Suarez, Bell, Chris Buescher, Jones, Byron, Wallace, Biffle, Truex, Haley and Harvick pitted while the rest led by Blaney remained on the track. By then, Larson, who spun on Lap 145, was up in second place.

With three laps remaining in the second stage, the race restarted under green as Blaney and Larson occupied the front row ahead of Hamlin and Elliott, At the start, Larson received a push from teammate Elliott and Briscoe to take over the lead while Blaney tried to fight back on the outside lane.

Then on the final lap of the second stage, the caution flew when Larson, who was battling for the win, got turned sideways entering Turn 4 as he bounced off of teammate Elliott before he shot back across Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota TRD Camry and wrecked towards the outside wall. The incident was enough for the second stage to conclude under caution as Blaney captured his second stage victory of the season on Lap 210. Elliott settled in second followed by Briscoe, Almirola, Keselowski, Suarez, Truex, Wallace, Byron and Chastain.

Under the stage break, some led by Blaney pitted while the rest led by Daniel Suarez remained on the track.

With 109 laps remaining, the final stage started. At the start, Suarez rocketed with the advantage while Truex settled in behind Suarez’s rear bumper. In addition, Bubba Wallace started to challenge Truex for the runner-up spot while Bell and Kurt Busch were in the top five.

Down to the final 100 laps of the event, Truex received a push from Bubba Wallace to overtake Suarez and lead while Elliott muscled his way to fourth place ahead of Bell and Kurt Busch.

Four laps later, however, Elliott returned to the lead over Truex as the top-22 competitors were separated by more than three seconds. By then, the event featured 41 lead changes among 18 different leaders.

With 75 laps remaining, Elliott was leading by a tenth of a second over Suarez while Bell, Briscoe and Byron were in the top five. Truex, Wallace, Aric Almirola, Bowman and Logano were in the top 10 followed by Blaney, Buescher, Keselowski, Erik Jones, Haley, Chastain, Biffle, Cody Ware, Corey LaJoie and BJ McLeod.

Four laps later, the caution flew due to debris on the track in Turns 3 and 4. Under caution, the leaders pitted and Almirola exited with the top spot followed by Byron, Wallace, Blaney, Jones and Truex, all of whom elected for four fresh tires.

With 66 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Almirola maintained the lead followed by Wallace before Byron overtook Wallace for the runner-up spot.

Four laps later, Byron reassumed the lead as Wallace and Blaney followed pursuit while Almirola settled in fourth ahead of Truex.

With 50 laps remaining, Byron continued to lead ahead of Wallace, Blaney, Almirola and Erik Jones as the top-23 competitors, all of whom were on the lead lap, were separated by less than three seconds.

Down to the final 25 laps of the event, Byron remained as the leader followed by Bubba Wallace, Blaney, Chastain, Almirola, Elliott, Erik Jones, Suarez, Briscoe and Bowman. Just then, the caution flew when rookie Todd Gilliland, who was lapped by the field, spun through the backstretch while Cody Ware, who was trying to dodge Gilliland, was sandwiched between two competitors and ended up pounding the inside wall head-on and with a vicious hit.

Under caution, some including Bowman, Keselowski, Truex, Corey LaJoie, Logano, Kurt Busch and Haley pitted while the rest led by Byron remained on the track.

With 19 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Wallace’s No. 23 McDonald’s Toyota TRD Camry received a push from Blaney’s No. 12 Body Armour Ford Mustang to challenge Byron’s No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for the lead, but Byron received a push from Almirola’s No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang to retain the lead. Just then, the caution flew when Almirola spun off the front nose of Chastain across the frontstretch grass, though he did not sustain any significant damage to his Ford.

With 13 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Byron received a push from Erik Jones’ No. 43 Focus Factor Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to maintain a narrow advantage until Wallace also received a push from Blaney to take the lead.

Down to the final 10 laps of the event, Wallace was leading with a narrow advantage until Byron fought back on the inside lane. While Byron had Erik Jones pushing him on the inside lane, Wallace continued to receive support from Blaney. During the following lap, however, Byron managed to pull in front of Wallace to maintain the lead and clear the pack.

With five laps remaining, Byron maintained the lead followed by Wallace, Blaney and Chastain while fifth-place Elliott started to mount a challenge on the inside lane before he moved back to the outside lane. Briscoe, Truex, Suarez, Bell and Erik Jones were in the top 10 as the top-18 competitors were separated by less than a second.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Byron continued to lead ahead of Wallace while Ross Chastain mounted a challenge on Wallace to the inside lane followed by Bell and Suarez. Then in Turn 1, Wallace got loose in front of Blaney and Blaney ended up scraping the wall in front of Briscoe. As Blaney dropped out of contention while Wallace lost his momentum, Byron remained as the leader through the backstretch while Bell made a move beneath Chastain in a bid for second place.

Despite having a pack of cars up close in the rearview mirror exiting the backstretch, Byron managed to fend off the momentum through the bottom and inside lanes in the final two turns as he stormed back to the frontstretch straight and streaked across the finish line to claim the victory by more than a tenth of a second.

With the victory, Byron notched his third career win in the NASCAR Cup Series, his first at Atlanta and his first since winning at Homestead-Miami Speedway in February 2021. He also became the third competitor from Hendrick Motorsports to win in 2022 alongside Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson.

“[The race] was so different,” Byron said on FOX. “Honestly, the last few laps there, [I] was just trying to manage the gap to Bubba [Wallace] and trying not to get too out front. My spotter Brandon [Lines], this is his first win, so congrats to him. Just thanks to this whole team. They’ve done a great job this year. Lots of changes with the Next Gen car, but the Liberty University Chevrolet was awesome there. [The team] Worked hard overnight. We had a pretty rough practice and worked hard on it and got it handling well. It was kind of an intermediate style with a little bit of speedway into it. Lot of fun. Thanks to everyone at Hendrick Motorsports and super exciting.”

Behind Byron, a multi-car wreck erupted that involved Buescher, Haley and Wallace as they were all battling for the finish, with Buescher managing to claim seventh place while Haley and Wallace ended up 11th and 13th respectively. In addition, Bell, who initially claimed the runner-up spot over Chastain, was credited with 23rd place, the final competitor on the lead lap, because he had advanced his position over Chastain below the white line markings, which was deemed illegal as part of Atlanta Motor Speedway’s reconfigured surface.

This allowed Chastain, who blew a right-rear tire while leading early and was multiple laps down, to finish in second place for the second time in back-to-back weekends while Kurt Busch posted his second consecutive top-five result in third place. Suarez, Chastain’s teammate, came home in fourth place while Corey LaJoie notched his first career top-five result in the Cup Series.

“What a day,” Chastain said. “That’s the fight in Trackhouse [Racing]. This Gen 7 car, to take a lick like that, blow a tire out of nowhere, leading, just cruising, blow a right rear [tire], slamming the wall. I thought our day was over. Our guys went underneath the car, got the tow closer and we got the balance back where I could drive it, This AdventHealth Chevy was fast. It was so fast. We were fighting with Will [Byron] there at the beginning. It’s so cool with, again, buddies. Like the last two [races], I’ve been able to race with my buddies…Daniel Suarez, what a teammate to push me there at the end.”

Elliott, Buescher, Truex, Logano and Bowman finished in the top 10. Notably, Erik Jones finished 14th ahead of Briscoe, Blaney fell back to 17th, teammates Harvick and Almirola ended up 21st and 22nd and Harrison Burton was the highest-finishing rookie in 25th.

There were a record-setting 46 lead changes for a record-setting 20 different leaders. The race featured a record-tying 11 cautions for 56 laps.

With his sixth-place result, Chase Elliott leads the regular-season standings by seven points over Joey Logano, 15 over Chase Briscoe, 20 over William Byron and 23 over Ryan Blaney and Kurt Busch.

Results.

1. William Byron, 111 laps led, Stage 1 winner

2. Ross Chastain, 42 laps led

3. Kurt Busch, four laps led

4. Daniel Suarez, 13 laps led

5. Corey LaJoie

6. Chase Elliott, 29 laps led

7. Chris Buescher

8. Martin Truex Jr., five laps led

9. Joey Logano, 12 laps led

10. Alex Bowman

11. Justin Haley, one lap led

12. Brad Keselowski

13. Bubba Wallace, three laps led

14. Erik Jones

15. Chase Briscoe, five laps led

16. Josh Bilicki

17. Ryan Blaney, 15 laps led, Stage 2 winner

18. David Ragan

19. BJ McLeod, two laps led

20. Greg Biffle

21. Kevin Harvick, 11 laps led

22. Aric Almirola, six laps led

23. Christopher Bell, 16 laps led

24. Michael McDowell, four laps down

25. Harrison Burton, four laps down

26. Cody Ware – OUT, Accident

27. Todd Gilliland – OUT, Dvp

28. Tyler Reddick – OUT, Accident, five laps led

29. Denny Hamlin – OUT, Accident, one lap led

30. Kyle Larson – OUT, Accident, one lap led

31. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – OUT, Accident, 22 laps led

32. Austin Cindric – OUT, Accident

33. Kyle Busch – OUT, Accident, 21 laps led

34. Cole Custer – OUT, Accident

35. Austin Dillon – OUT, Accident

36. Ty Dillon – OUT, Accident

37. Noah Gragson – OUT, Accident

Next on the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ second running of the EchoPark Automotive Texas Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The event is scheduled to occur on Sunday, March 27, at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

March 20, 2022
Bowman utilizes pit strategy to win in overtime at Las Vegas

Seizing an opportunity with a late two-tire pit strategy and rallying from an early pit road penalty, Alex Bowman prevailed in an overtime shootout against teammate Kyle Larson to win the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, March 6, and capture his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the 2022 season.

The 28-year-old native from Tucson, Arizona, led three times for 16 laps, including the final three, as he dueled and fended off teammate Larson entering the final turn on the final lap to grab the unlikeliest of victories following a late turn of events, where a late multi-car incident spoiled Kyle Busch’s opportunity in winning at his home track.

With on-track qualifying determining the starting lineup on Saturday, Christopher Bell captured his first NASCAR Cup Series career pole with a pole-winning lap at 182.673 mph in 29.561 seconds. Joining him on the front row was Kyle Larson, the reigning Cup Series champion and winner of last weekend’s event at Auto Club Speedway who posted a qualifying speed at 182.014 mph in 29.668 seconds.

Prior to the event, Cole Custer, Tyler Reddick and Daniel Hemric dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments to their respective machines along with Kyle Busch, who competed in a backup car after wrecking his primary car during Saturday’s practice session.

When the green flag waved and the race started, Bell took off with an early advantage while rookie Austin Cindric challenged Larson for the runner-up spot followed by Chase Elliott and Chase Briscoe. When the field returned to the start/finish line, Bell led the first lap as Larson managed to clear Cindric to retain second entering the first two turns.

With the field engaged in early, competitive racing around the circuit through the first five laps, Bell was leading by more than a second over Larson while Briscoe, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin were in the top five. Meanwhile, Cindric had fallen back to ninth place.

By Lap 10, Bell extended his advantage to nearly two seconds over Larson followed by Logano, Hamlin and Ryan Blaney. Briscoe, Alex Bowman, Cindric, William Byron and Ross Chastain were in the top 10 ahead of Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Michael McDowell.

Ten laps later, Bell continued to lead by more than two seconds over Hamlin, who made his No. 11 FedEx Toyota TRD Camry into the runner-up spot followed by Logano and Blaney while Larson had fallen back to fifth place.

When the competition caution flew on Lap 30, Bell remained as the leader by more than two seconds over teammate Hamlin and Blaney, both of whom were engaged in a tight battle for the runner-up spot. Teammates Bowman and Larson were in the top five followed by Truex, Logano, Byron, Briscoe and Chastain. By then, Elliott and Cindric were in 11th and 12th, Kevin Harvick was in 14th, Brad Keselowski was in 16th ahead of Reddick, Kyle Busch was up in 18th area of Daniel Suarez, Erik Jones, Kurt Busch and rookie Harrison Burton, Austin Dillon was in 26th, Aric Almirola was in 29th and Bubba Wallace was in 31st.

Under the competition caution, the leaders pitted for service and Blaney exited with the top spot ahead of Hamlin, Bell, Bowman, Chastain and the field. Following the pit stops, Larson pitted for a second time to address loose lug nuts along with Kyle Busch, who had a transmission issue.

When the race restarted under green on Lap 35, Blaney battled against Hamlin before maintaining the lead as Alex Bowman joined the party and overtook Hamlin for the runner-up spot. Soon after, a three-car battle ensued between Blaney, Bowman and Hamlin as Bowman started to challenge Blaney for the top spot.

Then on Lap 37, the caution flew when Cole Custer spun his No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang in Turn 2.

Five laps later, the race restarted under green. At the start, Blaney and Bowman engaged in a side-by-side battle in front of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Hamlin and Truex. Shortly after and with the field stacking up, the caution returned when Austin Dillon made contact with Justin Haley through Turns 1 and 2, which sent both competitors sideways as Kyle Busch also got sideways after getting hit by Hemric. At the moment of caution, Bowman emerged ahead of Blaney to take the lead.

Under caution and while pit road was closed for the field, Hemric pitted for the third time of the day with the driver reporting brake issues to his No. 16 South Point Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. When pit road opened, Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon pitted after both flat-spotted their tires.

When the race restarted under green on Lap 47, Bowman and Blaney battled dead even for the lead until Bowman managed to pull ahead entering Turn 3. Behind, teammates Truex and Hamlin battled for third and Byron battled for a spot in the top five as the field fanned out to multiple lanes.

Then on Lap 49, Bowman got his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 loose entering the backstretch, which allowed Hamlin to take the lead followed by Blaney, who got loose entering Turn 3, as Bowman fell back to third. Behind, Byron moved his No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 into fourth place followed by Truex and Chastain.

Through the first 60 laps of the event, Hamlin was leading by more than a second over Blaney while Truex, Bowman and Byron were in the top five. Chastain, Christopher Bell, Elliott, Larson and Kurt Busch were in the top 10 followed by Harvick, Logano, Briscoe, Erik Jones and Cindric.

Three laps later, the caution flew when Reddick spun his No. 8 Bet MGM Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 off of Turn 4 and through the frontstretch grass as his car briefly came off the ground. Under caution, nearly the entire field returned to pit road for service while Kurt Busch, Corey LaJoie, Custer, Josh Bilicki and Cody Ware remained on the track. During the pit stops, Truex was penalized for an uncontrolled tire violation.

When the race restarted under green on Lap 68, Kurt Busch maintained the lead, but was quickly pursued and challenged by Byron for the lead. Then on Lap 70, Byron emerged with the lead on four fresh tires followed by teammate Bowman.

By Lap 75, Byron was leading by less than four-tenths of a second over teammate Bowman while teammate Elliott trailed by more than a second. Chastain and Hamlin were in the top five followed by Larson, Blaney, Briscoe, Harvick and Bell.

Two laps later, however, Bowman reassumed the lead after overtaking his teammate Byron for the top spot. Behind, Chastain started to challenge Elliott for third place.

When the first stage concluded on Lap 80, Bowman claimed his first stage victory of the season. Teammate Byron settled in second place followed by Chastain, Hamlin, Elliott, Larson, Blaney, Briscoe, Kyle Busch and Bell. Following the first stage, Kyle Busch ran into Briscoe’s rear bumper to express his displeasure stemming from his battle with Briscoe prior to the stage’s conclusion.

Under the stage break, nearly the entire field returned to pit road for service and Brad Keselowski emerged with the lead following a two-tire pit stop followed by Hamlin, Elliott, Bowman and Cindric, all of whom had four tires changed to their respective machines. Back on the track, Michael McDowell remained on the track followed by Josh Bilicki and BJ McLeod before the latter two pitted.

The second stage started on Lap 87 as McDowell and Keselowski occupied the front row. At the start, Keselowski managed to fend off McDowell, Elliott and Hamlin to lead by a narrow margin before Chastain joined the party during the following lap. With Keselowski clearing the field, Hamlin moved to second followed by Chastain and Bowman while McDowell started to drift to the back.

Approaching Lap 91, Hamlin utilized the outside lane and four fresh tires to his advantage as he took the lead. Soon after, Bowman and Chastain overtook Keselowski for spots in the top three.

Then during the following lap, the caution flew when Briscoe got loose as McDowell slid up in front of him, which resulted in Briscoe clipping Daniel Suarez and sending Suarez’s No. 99 CommScope Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 hard into the frontstretch wall and sliding sideways as his race came to an end.

Under caution, some like Almirola, Austin Dillon, McDowell, Briscoe and Corey LaJoie pitted while the rest led by Hamlin remained on the track.

When the race restarted under green on Lap 97, Hamlin retained the lead following a push from Chastain on the inside lane as Chastain moved into second place. Behind, teammates, Byron and Bowman battled for third place while Keselowski maintained fifth ahead of Kyle Busch, Elliott and Larson.

At the Lap 100 mark, Hamlin was leading by less than four-tenths of a second over Chastain followed by Byron and Bowman while Kyle Busch emerged in the top five. Behind, Truex and Larson battled for sixth while Keselowski was back in eighth ahead of Blaney and Erik Jones.

Then on Lap 103, the caution flew when Keselowski, who was back in eighth place, got loose and spun entering Turn 4. He was then hit by ex-teammate Blaney’s No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang as Keselowski’s No. 6 Fastenal Ford Mustang continued to spin in a series of circles across the frontstretch, though he was dodged by the field. The incident terminated Blaney’s strong run while Keselowski continued.

Under caution, the majority of the field led by Hamlin pitted while the rest led by Kyle Busch remained on the track.

On Lap 109, the race restarted under green. At the start, Kyle Busch maintained the lead followed by Aric Almirola, Chastain and Hamlin while Austin Dillon was fading with no fresh tires. Meanwhile, Larson issued a challenge for a spot in the top five.

During the following two laps, Kyle Busch remained in the lead as Chastain and Larson started to challenge Busch for the top spot. Then on Lap 113, Chastain moved his No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to the front as Larson followed suit.

A few laps later, Larson got loose in Turn 3 while battling Chastain for the lead as he slipped out of the top five.

By Lap 120, Chastain was leading by nearly eight-tenths of a second over Hamlin while Bowman, Larson and Truex were in the top five. Kyle Busch was back in sixth ahead of Byron, Bell, Elliott and Harvick while Kurt Busch, Erik Jones, Logano, Bubba Wallace and Briscoe were in the top 15.

Ten laps later, Chastain continued to lead by more than three-tenths of a second over Hamlin while Larson, Bowman and Bell were scored in the top five. By then, Kyle Busch was back in eighth place ahead of Elliott and Harvick.

Just past the halfway mark on Lap 135, the caution flew when Briscoe got loose and spun in Turn 3 as he was narrowly dodged by rookie Harrison Burton when his car rolled back to the apron. At the same time, Cindric spun at the exact turn after getting hit by Almirola. Both managed to pit their respective cars, but Briscoe eventually retired in the garage.

Under caution, the field pitted and Larson exited with the top spot followed by Chastain, Bell, Elliott and Kyle Busch. During the pit stops, Hamlin ran over his air hose, In addition, Bowman was penalized for an equipment interference when a tire rolled into Cody Ware’s pit box,

When the race restarted on Lap 139, Larson received a push from Chastain to retain the lead while Bell battled against Elliott and Kyle Busch for third place.

A few laps later, the caution flew when Bell got loose and spun his No. 20 DeWalt Toyota TRD Camry through the backstretch. Behind him, Harrison Burton also spun in his No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang.

Under caution, Burton along with McLeod and Bilicki pitted while the rest led by Larson remained on the track.

When the race restarted on Lap 147, teammates Larson and Elliott battled dead even for the lead followed by Chastain, Kyle Busch, Truex and Byron.

During the following lap, Larson managed to clear the field to retain the lead while Chastain challenged Elliott for the runner-up spot.

By Lap 155 and with the laps in the second stage dwindling, Larson was out in front by less than two-tenths of a second over Chastain while third-place Elliott trailed by less than a second. Behind, Kyle Busch and Byron battle for fourth place in front of Truex while Logano, Harvick, Bubba Wallace and Hamlin were in the top 10.

Then on Lap 160, Chastain emerged with the top spot following a fierce battle with Larson, though Larson kept Chastain within his sights. Soon after, Elliott started to close in on teammate Larson for the runner-up spot.

When the second stage concluded on Lap 165, the No. 1 ACM/Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 piloted by Chastain retained the No. 1 spot and claimed the stage victory. Elliott raced his way into second place followed by Larson, Byron, Kyle Busch, Truex, Logano, Harvick, Hamlin and Wallace. By then, 30 of the 37 starters were scored on the lead lap.

Under the stage break, the leaders peeled to pit road for service and Chastain retained the top spot after exiting with the lead followed by Kyle Busch, Larson, Elliott and Truex.

Prior to the start of the final stage, Cole Custer stalled his car in Turn 4 and eventually retired due to an engine failure and with smoke brewing beneath his car.

With 93 laps remaining, the final stage started under green. At the start, Chastain and Kyle Busch battled for three full laps until Chastain managed to fend off a ferocious battle against Busch to retain the lead.

Soon after, Chastain was out in front by nearly half a second over Kyle Busch while Elliott, Larson and Logano were in the top five.

Down to the final 75 laps of the event, Chastain stabilized his advantage to eight-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch while Elliott and Truex battled for third place. Behind, Larson was in fifth ahead of teammates Bowman and Byron while Hamlin, Logano and Reddick were in the top 10.

Fifteen laps later, Chastain continued to lead by more than eight-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch while third-place Truex trailed by less than three seconds. Meanwhile, Bowman was in fourth while Larson, who was reporting a vibration to his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, was in fifth. Hamlin was in sixth followed by Byron, Reddick, Elliott and Logano.

Approaching the final 50 laps of the event, green flag pit stops commenced as Austin Dillon pitted along with Almirola, Bubba Wallace, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Reddick, Harvick, Truex, Hamlin, Elliott, Larson, Logano, Elliott and the leader Chastain. During the pit stops, Larson was penalized for speeding on pit road.

Then with 47 laps remaining, the caution flew when Hamlin, who had completed his pit service under green, spun before coming to a stop below the apron in Turn 2 due to a mechanical issue. He ended up needing assistance from a wrecker to return to his pit stall, but his strong afternoon came to a late conclusion as Hamlin was strapped with two DNFs through the first three scheduled events. At the moment of caution, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who had yet to pit, was scored the leader followed by Ty Dillon, who also needed to pit, while Kyle Busch was out in front ahead of Chastain and Truex.

Under caution, Stenhouse and Dillon pitted as Kyle Busch assumed the lead followed by Chastain and Truex.

With 41 laps remaining, the race restarts under green. At the start, Kyle Busch battled against Chastain through the first two turns before he moved his No. 18 Ethel M Chocolates Toyota TRD Camry into the lead. With Chastain managing to retain second, Truex was engaged in a battle with Bowman for third place while Stenhouse was in fifth ahead of Byron.

With 30 laps remaining, Kyle Busch extended his advantage to more than a second over teammate Truex, who earlier battled and prevailed over a battle with Chastain for the runner-up spot. Behind, Bowman settled in fourth in front of teammate Byron. By then, Reddick, who spun on Lap 63, was in sixth followed by Stenhouse and Almirola while 23XI Racing’s Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace were in the top 10.

Ten laps later, Kyle Busch’s advantage was reduced to a tenth of a second over teammate Truex while third-place Chastain trailed by seven-tenths of a second. Bowman continued to run in fourth place while trailing by less than two seconds, teammate Byron trailed in fifth place by more than four seconds and sixth-place Reddick trailed by more than eight seconds.

Soon after, the battle for the lead between Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch and Truex ignited as Truex started to challenge Busch for the top spot.

At the start/finish line with 15 laps remaining, Kyle Busch was ahead by a hair over teammate Truex, but Busch could not drive away from Truex as he launched another attack on the inside lane. By then, the teammates were pulling away by more than a second over Chastain.

Then with 13 laps remaining, Truex gained a run through the backstretch to peek ahead and try to clear Busch entering Turns 3 and 4, but Busch utilized a crossover move on the inside lane to reassume the lead through Turn 4 and during the following lap.

Down to the final 10 laps of the event and with the leaders mired in lapped traffic, Kyle Busch continued to lead by a narrow margin over teammate Truex while Chastain was trailing the leaders by more than two seconds.

With five laps remaining, Kyle Busch retained the lead by less than four-tenths of a second over teammate Truex, who kept teammate Busch within his sights but could not gain a strong run to attack nor clear Busch for the lead.

Just then, Erik Jones pounded the outside wall hard entering Turn 4 with three laps remaining. Though the race briefly remained under green flag conditions, the caution flew when Jones, who was trying to straighten his car below the apron, slipped sideways and spun back across the middle of the track as he was narrowly dodged by Bubba Wallace, who spun and hit the tire barriers near the pit road exit. At the moment of caution, Kyle Busch had managed to maintain a stable advantage over teammate Truex.

Under caution, the leaders pitted and Larson emerged with the lead following a two-tire pit stop along with teammates Bowman and Byron while Kyle Busch, the first competitor with four fresh tires, exited in fourth place followed by Chastain and Truex.

With the event sent into overtime, teammates Larson and Bowman occupied the front row when the race restarted under green. At the start, teammates Larson and Bowman battled dead-even for the lead ahead of Byron, Kyle Busch, Truex and Chastain for a full lap.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, teammates Bowman and Larson continued to battle dead even for the lead and the win ahead of the field with no runs occurring for the two leaders. Entering Turns 3 and 4, Bowman started to peek ahead and he managed to clear teammate Larson to take over the lead. Larson then tried to pull a crossover move on Bowman’s No. 48 Chevrolet, but he could not gain momentum through the frontstretch as Bowman streaked across the finish line in first place for his first checked flag of the season.

By capturing his first victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the second consecutive victory of the season for Hendrick Motorsports, Bowman became the third different winner through the first three scheduled events of 2022 as he captured his seventh NASCAR Cup Series career win in his 228th series start. The 2022 season marked Bowman’s fourth consecutive year of notching at least one Cup victory as he also recorded the first win for the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports entry at Vegas since 2010 that was last made by seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.

“I just can’t thank Ally and Chevrolet, everybody from Hendrick Motorsports enough,” Bowman said on FOX. “This thing was so fast all day. Just never really had the track position we needed to show it, but man, what a call by [crew chief] Greg Ives and the guys to take two [tires] there. Obviously, it paid off. Racing Kyle’s [Larson] always fun. [I] Got to race him for a couple of wins. We’ve always raced each other super clean and super respectfully. Just can’t say enough about these guys. It’s been a pretty awful start to the year. To come out here and get a win on a last restart deal like that is pretty special.”

Teammate Larson rallied from an adversity-filled event to settle in second place while Chastain, who led a race-high 83 of 274 laps, came home in third place for his first top-five result of the season.

“A dream come true,” Chastain said. “This is what all the work is for. This is why we train and try to build our whole lives and careers once we can race at this level is to have race cars like that. I couldn’t be more proud of Trackhouse [Racing]. It took a lot of patience inside the car from our fast racing. It’s tough for me to not get too aggressive and a lot of neutral thinking. Josh Wise and a book by Trevor Moawad really helped me today and that’s progress.”

Despite falling short of the victory at his home track, Kyle Busch, who finished in fourth place after leading 49 laps, praised the Joe Gibbs Racing organization and the teams for their support in preparing Busch’s backup car for the main event after he wrecked his primary car during Saturday’s practice session.

“Yeah, true testament to everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing,” Busch said. “[I] Really appreciate the No. 18 guys, my guys, but also the Nos. 11, 19 and 20, all them, for coming over, pitching in. Everybody had a hand in being able to make us go today. [I] Really appreciate that. Great Ethel M Chocolates Toyota Camry TRD today. [The car] Was good there, fast at the end. Trying to just do what I could to hold the lead there with Truex and felt like I inched away finally. We were coming to the white [flag] or something. I don’t know what it was. Anyways, [it] wasn’t meant to be. Not our day. See you next week.”

Byron rallied from sustaining two consecutive DNFs through the first two scheduled events to complete the top five in fifth place. Almirola, Reddick, Truex, Elliott and Bell finished in the top 10. Harrison Burton was the highest-finishing rookie in 16th place while Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Joey Logano finished 12th, 13th and 14th. Cindric ended up in 19th while Keselowski settled in 24th ahead of Bubba Wallace, both of whom were scored a lap down.

There were 23 lead changes for 15 different leaders. The race featured 12 cautions for 60 laps.

With his runner-up result, Kyle Larson leads the regular-season standings by six points over Martin Truex Jr., nine over Joey Logano, 10 over rookie Austin Cindric and 11 over Kyle Busch.

Results.

1. Alex Bowman, 16 laps led, Stage 1 winner

2. Kyle Larson, 27 laps led

3. Ross Chastain, 83 laps led, Stage 2 winner

4. Kyle Busch, 49 laps led

5. William Byron, eight laps led

6. Aric Almirola

7. Tyler Reddick

8. Martin Truex Jr., one lap led

9. Chase Elliott

10. Christopher Bell, 32 laps led

11. Austin Dillon

12. Kevin Harvick

13. Kurt Busch, four laps led

14. Joey Logano

15. Corey LaJoie

16. Harrison Burton

17. Justin Haley

18. Chris Buescher

19. Austin Cindric

20. Ty Dillon, one lap led

21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., four laps led

22. Daniel Hemric

23. Todd Gilliland

24. Brad Keselowski, one lap down, three laps led

25. Bubba Wallace, one lap down

26. Cody Ware, one lap down

27. Michael McDowell, one lap down, four laps led

28. BJ McLeod, two laps down

29. Josh Bilicki, three laps down

30. Garrett Smithley, seven laps down

31. Erik Jones – OUT, Accident

32. Denny Hamlin – OUT, Drivetrain, 31 laps led

33. Cole Custer – OUT

34. Greg Biffle – OUT, Fuel pump, one lap led

35. Chase Briscoe – OUT, Accident

36. Ryan Blaney – OUT, Accident, 10 laps led

37. Daniel Suarez – OUT, Accident

The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series’ West Coast swing will cap off its three-race West Coast swing next weekend at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. The event is scheduled to occur on Sunday, March 13, at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

March 6, 2022
Logano claims Busch Light Clash victory at LA Coliseum

Joey Logano etched his name as the winner of the 2022 Busch Light Clash in NASCAR’s inaugural exhibition event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Sunday, February 6, after leading the final 35 laps and fending off a late challenge from Kyle Busch. The victory marked Logano’s second career Clash victory after winning his first at Daytona International Speedway in February 2017 as he also emerged victorious in NASCAR’s first event with the Gen 7 stock cars.

The lineup for the exhibition feature was determined through the use of four 25-lap heat races, caution laps not included, and nine competitors from a total of 36 competing in each. The top-four finishers from each heat (16 total) earned a one-way ticket to the Clash. Afterwards, the 20 competitors who did not advance to the Clash via the heat races participated in two 50-lap Last Chance Qualifying races with the top-three finishers in each Last Chance Qualifying event advancing to the Clash.

In the first Heat event, Kyle Busch, the reigning Clash champion who posted the fastest qualifying lap at 65.478 mph on Saturday and started on the pole, transferred after leading all 25 laps and finishing first ahead of runner-up Daniel Suarez. They were joined by third-place finisher Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and fourth-place finisher Ryan Blaney in the main event while Denny Hamlin, Ross Chastain, rookie Todd Gilliland, Aric Almirola and BJ McLeod were sent to the Last Chance Qualifiers. The first Heat victory gave Kyle Busch the top starting spot for the main event

In the second Heat event, Tyler Reddick, who started on the pole, ran away from the field to lead all 25 laps, finish first and transfer followed by Chase Briscoe, Austin Dillon and Cole Custer. Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Martin Truex Jr., rookie Harrison Burton and Brad Keselowski were sent to the Last Chance Qualifiers. The second Heat victory gave Reddick a front row starting spot alongside Kyle Busch for the main event.

In the third Heat event, Justin Haley, who commenced his first full-time campaign in the NASCAR Cup Series competitor for Kaulig Racing on the pole, fended off the field to lead all 25 laps and transfer to the main event after finishing first. Joining him were William Byron, Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott while AJ Allmendinger, Kevin Harvick, Chris Buescher, Cody Ware and Corey LaJoie were sent to the Last Chance Qualifiers. The third Heat victory placed Haley on the second row for the Clash.

In the fourth and final Heat event, Joey Logano, who started on pole, survived through two restarts to lead all 25 laps and transfer by finishing first ahead of Kyle Larson, the reigning Cup Series champion. Michael McDowell, the reigning Daytona 500 champion, finished third and also transferred along with Erik Jones, a former Clash winner. Austin Cindric, who spun on Lap 9 after getting hit by Landon Cassill and was trying to carve his way back to the front, settled in fifth and was sent to the Last Chance Qualifiers along with Ryan Preece, Kurt Busch, Cassill and Ty Dillon, who brought out an early caution after his car slowed due to a broken transmission. The fourth Heat victory placed Logano alongside Haley in the second row.

Prior to the event, Larson was the lone competitor who was guaranteed a spot to the 2022 Busch Light Clash based on point provisional and being the reigning Cup champion. With Larson earning a top-four result in his heat event, however, Martin Truex Jr. was awarded a spot for the Clash based on points provisional due to finishing in the runner-up result in the 2021 Cup standings behind Larson. He opted to not participate in the Last Chance Qualifiers and use the points provisional to start at the rear of the field for the main event.

In the first Last Chance Qualifying event, Denny Hamlin raced his way into the main event after leading all 50 laps and finishing first ahead of Kevin Harvick and AJ Allmendinger, both of whom also transferred. Cody Ware, Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Corey LaJoie, rookie Todd Gilliland and BJ McLeod failed to qualify for the main event. Another competitor who headed home early was Aric Almirola, who commenced his final full-time season in NASCAR competition on a low note after getting bumped by Gilliland on Lap 4, which sent Almirola’s No. 10 Farmer John Ford Mustang sliding and making hard contact against the Turn 3 outside wall. The Floridian was very quick to express a warning finger towards the Front Row Motorsports rookie competitor following the incident.

In the second and final Last Chance Qualifying event, Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace and Harrison Burton survived a series of on-track carnages and restarts to claim the final transfer spots into the main event. Ty Dillon, who was originally penalized for jumping the restart with less than 20 laps remaining but fought his way back to the front, was first across the finish line in the final Last Chance Qualifying event, but was penalized a second time for jumping the final restart with three laps remaining and disqualified from the main event. As a result, Preece was promoted to first place ahead of Wallace and Burton, who rallied from spinning while leading with three laps remaining. Dillon joined Brad Keselowski, rookie Austin Cindric, Landon Cassill, Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman, all of whom were involved in at least one on-track incident, as the next wave of competitors that were sent home and out of the main event.

When the main event commenced under green, Kyle Busch and Reddick dueled for the lead for a full lap as Reddick led the first lap by a nose. Busch was able to lead the following two laps before Reddick muscled his way into the lead by the fourth lap.

Through the first 10 laps of the event, Reddick’s No. 8 Guaranteed Rate Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was leading ahead of Kyle Busch’s No. 18 M&M’s Toyota TRD Camry while Haley, Logano and Suarez were in the top five.

Ten laps later and with the leaders catching lapped traffic amid the close-quarter racing, Reddick continued to lead by six-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch while Haley, Logano and Suarez remained in the top five. Larson was in sixth ahead of teammate Byron, Briscoe, Austin Dillon and Cole Custer while Erik Jones, McDowell, Christopher Bell, Blaney and Elliott were in the top 15. By then, Bubba Wallace, Stenhouse and Hamlin were lapped by the leaders.

By Lap 35, Reddick stabilized his advantage to less than four-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch as Haley and Logano remained in third and fourth. Meanwhile, Larson overtook Suarez to move into the top five.

Through the first 50 laps of the event, Reddick remained as the leader by more than a second over Kyle Busch while Logano was up in third place in his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang. Haley was in fourth while Larson and Briscoe battled for fifth. Byron, Suarez, Austin Dillon and Erik Jones were in the top 10 ahead of Blaney, Elliott, Custer, Bell and Kevin Harvick. By then, names like McDowell, Martin Truex Jr., teammate Hamlin, Preece, Stenhouse and Wallace were mired at least a lap behind the leaders.

Three laps later, the first caution of the main event flew when Stenhouse spun in Turn 4. At the same time, Hamlin, who was off the pace prior to the caution, pulled his No. 11 FedEx Toyota TRD Camry into the infield as his pit crew popped the hood opened to diagnose a power steering belt issue. The issue was enough to terminate Hamlin’s run in the Coliseum.

Prior to the restart, Reddick, who was leading, and Briscoe, who was in fourth, retired after both encountered mechanical issues related to the driveshaft. These late turn of events moved Kyle Busch and Logano to the front of the grid.

When the race restarted, Busch was able to clear Logano to retain the lead as Larson challenged Logano for the runner-up spot. Not long after, Logano retained second and Haley move his No. 31 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 into third place while Larson slipped to fourth ahead of teammate Byron.

By Lap 60, Kyle Busch continued to lead by nearly half a second over Logano while Haley, Larson and Byron stabilized themselves in the top five ahead of Erik Jones, Elliott, Blaney, Bell and Austin Dillon. Meanwhile, Suarez was in 11th ahead of Allmendinger, Custer, Harvick, Harrison Burton and McDowell.

Five laps later, the caution returned when Elliott spun his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Turn 2.

Shortly after and when the race restarted under green, Kyle Busch and Logano dueled for the lead for a second time before Busch managed to clear Logano and retain the top spot. Behind, Byron challenged Haley for third ahead of Larson and Blaney.

When the race reached the halfway mark and a break period on Lap 75, Kyle Busch fended off a last lap bump from Logano, which sent Busch’s car out of the racing groove, to retain the lead by a narrow margin. By then, Haley was in third ahead of Byron, Larson, Blaney, Austin Dillon, Erik Jones, Bell and Allmendinger.

When the second half of the Clash started under green, Kyle Busch retained the lead as Byron settled in second ahead of Logano and the field. Meanwhile, Ryan Preece pulled his No. 15 Jacob Companies Ford Mustang to the infield due to a brake failure.

A few laps later, a brief three-wide battle for second ensued between Larson, Logano and Byron before Larson prevailed ahead of both. Behind, Haley settled in fifth ahead of Austin Dillon, Blaney, Jones, Bell and Allmendinger.

With 60 laps remaining, Kyle Busch stabilized his advantage to more than a second over Logano while Larson, Haley and Byron remained in the top five. By then, 17 of 23 competitors were scored on the lead lap with Truex settling in 17th.

Fifteen laps later, Kyle Busch remained as the leader by less than seven-tenths of a second over Logano. Behind, Larson remained in third ahead of teammate Byron and Haley while Austin Dillon, Blaney, Erik Jones, Bell and Chase Elliott were in the top 10.

Another 15 laps later, the caution flew when Blaney fell off the pace and retired after an earlier bump and contact with Erik Jones sent Blaney into the outside wall. The incident prompted Blaney to toss his HANS device to Jones’ No. 43 FOCUSFactor Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 on the track to express his displeasure as his race came to an end. Prior to the caution, Kyle Busch was being pressured by Logano for the lead, where he got bumped by Logano’s Ford through the braking turns, as he was catching lapped traffic.

When the race restarted, Kyle Busch and Logano continued to duel for the lead. Just then, the caution returned when Larson, who was battling Haley for third, veered and body slammed into the side of Haley and sent the Winamac, Indiana, native head-on into the inside concrete barriers on the frontstretch. The incident spoiled Haley’s strong weekend and a potential opportunity to win as he retired in the infield.

Following another restart, Logano muscled his way into the lead and Larson moved his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 into second ahead of Kyle Busch.

With less than 30 laps remaining, Logano was leading by a little over half a second over Larson and Kyle Busch while Austin Dillon and Byron battled for fourth.

Down to the final 20 laps of the event, Logano continued to lead by less than nine-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch, who earlier used his car to overtake Larson for second as he set his sights on Logano for the lead.

Five laps later and as Kyle Busch continued to close in on Logano for the lead, Austin Dillon moved up to third followed by Byron and Erik Jones while Larson slipped back to sixth ahead of Christopher Bell.

With 10 laps remaining, the battle for the lead intensified as Logano had Kyle Busch covering his rear view mirrors with Busch drawing himself closer to Logano’s rear bumper.

Down to the final five laps, the gap between Logano and Kyle Busch was down to less than half a second as Logano remained in the lead.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Logano stabilized himself with a respective advantage over Kyle Busch. With no challengers able to close in behind him, Logano was able to methodically navigate his way around the Coliseum smoothly for a final time and cross the finish line in first place to win by nearly nine-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch as Truex and McDowell wrecked in front of the leaders.

With Logano becoming the first NASCAR competitor to win at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Clash victory was also the fifth for Team Penske and the 10th for the Ford nameplate.

“I can’t believe it!” Logano, who revealed that his wife was expecting their third baby on FOX, exclaimed. “We’re here. The L.A. Coliseum. We got the victory with the old Shell/Pennzoil Mustang. This is an amazing event. Congratulations, NASCAR. Such a huge step in our industry to be able to do this, put on an amazing race for everybody. I’m out of breath. I was so excited about this. This is a big win. [Crew chief] Paul [Wolfe], [race engineer] Shaggy [Pope] and the engineers do a great job. The guys working on the car did an amazing job of finding speed when we were slow. We were 28th or so on the board yesterday and made some good changes, worked with our teammate Ryan Blaney a lot. I owe a lot to him, too. To see some of the gains they made and ultimately get the win. This is special. To get the first Next Gen win, the first win out here on the Coliseum, it’s a special one. We’re gonna have some fun and celebrate it.”

Kyle Busch, the reigning Clash winner who led a race-high 64 laps compared to Logano’s 35, settled in second place followed by Austin Dillon, Erik Jones and Larson.

“I was being perfect doing everything I needed to do—keep the tires underneath me,” Busch said. “When I got close, I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got to try more and pounce at an opportunity,’ and just overheated the tires and smoked them in three laps and that was it. Disappointing, obviously. To come out here, win the pole, lead laps, run up front, the finish goes green and it’s not chaotic, and we can’t win. That sucks.”

“From where we were last night, it took a lot of crazy faith, a little prayer last night, talked to myself,” Dillon added. “We got it together today, though. The True Velocity Chevrolet was really fast, in practice. I just struggled a little bit [through] qualifying. I knew we’d get in the race, we’re gonna be fine. The long run speed was there. I’m disappointed I couldn’t get to those next two cars that were really wanting to get there, but all in all, a great race from where we were last night. Everybody back home at [Richard Childress Racing did] a good job. It was a good showing from us.”

Byron, Custer, Bell, Allmendinger and Harvick completed the top 10 on the track.

There were five lead changes for three different leaders. The race featured five cautions for no laps.

Results.

1. Joey Logano, 35 laps led

2. Kyle Busch, 64 laps led

3. Austin Dillon

4. Erik Jones

5. Kyle Larson

6. William Byron

7. Cole Custer

8. Christopher Bell

9. AJ Allmendinger

10. Kevin Harvick

11. Chase Elliott

12. Harrison Burton

13. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

14. Daniel Suarez

15. Martin Truex Jr., one lap down

16. Michael McDowell, one lap down

17. Ryan Blaney, three laps down

18. Bubba Wallace, four laps down

19. Justin Haley – OUT, Accident

20. Ryan Preece – OUT, Oil Pressure

21. Tyler Reddick – OUT, Drivetrain, 51 laps led

22. Chase Briscoe – OUT, Drivetrain

23. Denny Hamlin – OUT, Power

The NASCAR Cup Series competitors will be taking a one-week break before returning to action at Daytona International Speedway in preparation for the 64th running of the Daytona 500 scheduled for February 20 at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX. Practices will occur on February 15 from 5:05-5:55 and 6:35-7:25 p.m. ET with a third practice session to occur on February 18 from 6 p.m. to 6:50 p.m. ET. The pole position qualifying session for the 500 is scheduled to occur on February 16 at 8:05 p.m. ET while the Bluegreen Vacations Duels, which will determine the remainder of the lineup for the 500, will occur on February 17 at 7 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET, both to air on FS1.

February 6, 2022
Larson clinches championship spot with a win at Texas

The 2021 comeback, dream season for Kyle Larson became even brighter as the California kid dominated and fended off the field through four restarts under the final 25 laps to win the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, October 17.

By winning the Playoff’s Round of 8 opener at the Lone Star state for his eighth victory of the season, Larson punched his ticket to the Championship 4 Round at Phoenix Raceway scheduled in early November as he will contend for his first NASCAR Cup Series championship.

The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Kyle Larson, winner of last weekend’s Playoff event at the Charlotte Roval, started on pole position and was joined on the front row with Denny Hamlin.

Prior to the event, Playoff contender Chase Elliott started at the rear of the field due to his No. 9 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE failing pre-race inspection twice. Other competitors who started at the rear of the field due to two inspection failures included Corey LaJoie, rookie Chase Briscoe, Garrett Smithley and David Starr. Prior to the start, Alex Bowman, who was recently eliminated from the Playoffs, and Justin Haley also dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments to their respective machines.

When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Larson received a push from Kyle Busch to jump to an early advantage for a full lap. With Larson leading the first lap, he had the green No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry piloted by Kyle Busch close in his rearview mirrors while the No. 22 AAA Insurance Ford Mustang driven by Joey Logano started to close in. Denny Hamlin maintained fourth while Martin Truex Jr. was challenged by Tyler Reddick and others for more.

By the fifth lap, Larson was out in front by nearly half a second over Kyle Busch. While Hamlin started to challenge Logano for third, Ryan Blaney moved up to fifth followed by teammate Brad Keselowski.

Through the first 10 laps of the event, Larson stabilized his advantage to nearly half a second over Kyle Busch while Logano, Blaney and Hamlin were in the top five. William Byron, following his elimination from the Playoffs, was up in sixth followed by Keselowski, Truex, Tyler Reddick and Chris Buescher. Meanwhile, Chase Elliott was up in 18th.

Ten laps later, Larson extended his advantage to more than two seconds over Logano, who overtook Kyle Busch earlier. Blaney, meanwhile, started to close in on Logano and Busch for more while Byron was up in fifth ahead of Hamlin’s No. 11 Craftsman Toyota Camry.

When the competition caution flew on Lap 25, Larson was leading by more than three seconds over Logano, who had teammate Blaney starting to challenge him for the runner-up spot. Behind, Byron moved his No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE ahead of Kyle Busch. While seven Playoff contenders were in the top 10, Elliott, the eighth and final title contender, was up in 13th in between Buescher and Bubba Wallace.

Under the competition caution, the leaders pitted and Byron, who opted for a two-tire pit stop, leapfrogged from fourth to the lead followed by Truex, Kyle Busch, Reddick, Christopher Bell and Logano, who made light contact with Justin Haley’s Spire Motorsports car while exiting his pit stall. Following the pit stops, however, Kyle Busch was sent to the rear of the field for speeding on pit road.

When the race restarted on Lap 30, Byron maintained the lead ahead of Truex and Reddick as the field fanned out to multiple lanes entering the first two turns. Just then, the caution returned for a 10-car wreck that started when Bubba Wallace, who was in between Kurt Busch and Keselowski, got loose underneath Busch, clipped Michael McDowell and was hit by Ross Chastain while Alex Bowman got turned after being hit by Cole Custer, Aric Almirola and Ryan Newman. Also involved were Ricky Stenhouse Jr., teammate Ryan Preece, Haley, Cody Ware and Joey Gase as many were taken out of contention.

In the midst of the carnage, Kyle Busch, who sustained minimal rear-end damage but managed to dodge most of the carnage, pitted for fresh tires along with Keselowski and Blaney.

Following an extensive cleanup, the race restarted on Lap 39. At the start, Truex engaged in a heated side-by-side battle with Byron as the field again fanned out while jostling for positions. Truex managed to lead the following lap by a nose before Byron fought back on the inside lane and cleared Truex entering the backstretch. Behind was Matt DiBenedetto along with Logano and Bell while Hamlin was in sixth. Meanwhile, Elliott was left in a battle with Austin Dillon and Larson for eighth.

On Lap 43, Reddick made the slightest of air contact with Truex entering Turn 3, which wiggled Truex’s car up the track and dropped him from second to fifth as Reddick, DiBenedetto and Logano took advantage of Truex’s misfortune.

Through the first 50 laps of the event, Byron was leading by six-tenths of a second over Reddick while third-place DiBenedetto trailed by more than two seconds. Teammates Hamlin and Truex were in the top five ahead of Elliott. Bell, Larson, Blaney and Logano were in the top 10 followed by Austin Dillon, Erik Jones, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Daniel Suarez. Kyle Busch, meanwhile, was in 16th ahead of Keselowski, Chris Buescher, Chase Briscoe and Corey LaJoie.

Ten laps later, Byron continued to lead by six-tenths of a second over Reddick while third-place Hamlin trailed by more than four seconds. Behind, teammates Larson and Elliott moved in the top five ahead of Blaney, DiBenedetto, Bell, Truex and Erik Jones. Kyle Busch was in 11th, Logano was back in 12th and Keselowski was mired in 17th.

Another 10 laps later, Byron stretched his advantage to more than a second over Reddick. Meanwhile, Larson flew his way to third place ahead of Hamlin, Elliott and Blaney while Kyle Busch worked his way up to seventh. Truex, however, slipped back to 10th in between DiBenedetto and Kurt Busch while Logano and Keselowski were in 13th and 17th.

On Lap 82, Larson returned to the lead after gaining a huge momentum entering the backstretch and overtaking teammate Byron on four fresh tires compared to no fresh tires to Byron.

Three laps later, Larson slowly started to extend his advantage to nearly seven-tenths of a second over teammate Byron while Reddick, Hamlin and Elliott remained in the top five.

Another five laps later, Larson’s advantage grew to more than a second over teammate Byron.

On Lap 95, Larson pitted under green along with Byron, Reddick, DiBenedetto, Logano and others. Soon after, names like Elliott, Harvick and Hamlin, who led two laps, pitted. In the midst of the pit stops, Kyle Busch, racing with race engineer Seth Chavka serving as an interim crew chief, was leading with plans on winning the stage after pitting under the previous caution for the multi-car wreck.

At the Lap 100 mark, Kyle Busch was leading by three-tenths of a second over teammate Bell while Blaney, Kurt Busch and Buescher were in the top five. By then, Truex pitted under green. Soon after, Bell surrendered the runner-up spot to pit.

When the first stage concluded on Lap 105, Kyle Busch claimed his seventh stage victory of the season. Blaney settled in second ahead of Larson, Kurt Busch, Byron, Briscoe, Hamlin, Elliott, Reddick and Keselowski. By then, 12 competitors were scored on the lead lap while names like Truex and Logano were behind a lap.

Under the stage break, the lead lap competitors pitted as Kyle Busch retained the lead ahead of Larson, Kurt Busch, Truex, Blaney and Byron.

The second stage started on Lap 112. At the start, Kyle Busch received a push from Byron to clear Larson entering the first turn and maintain the lead.

The following lap, Briscoe nearly made contact with Blaney entering Turn 3, but both competitors kept their cars straight as Briscoe moved up to sixth behind teammate Harvick. Meanwhile, Larson challenged Kyle Busch for the lead while Byron and Elliott were in third and fourth.

After battling Busch side-by-side for a full lap, Larson reassumed the lead approaching Lap 117 ahead of Kyle Busch while Harvick challenged Byron for third ahead of Reddick, Elliott and Briscoe.

By Lap 120, Larson was out in front by nearly half a second over teammate Byron while Kyle Busch settled in third ahead of Reddick, Harvick and Elliott. Logano made his way up to seventh ahead of teammate Keselowski, Briscoe and Blaney while Hamlin and Truex were in 11th and 12th.

Through the first 150 laps of the event, Larson, racing in his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, stabilized his advantage to nearly three seconds over teammate Byron while Kyle Busch, Reddick and Harvick were in the top five. Blaney and Elliott were in sixth and seventh followed by Keselowski, Keselowski and Hamlin while Truex was in 11th.

Nearly five laps later, green flag pit stops occurred as Elliott pitted his No. 9 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. Soon after, Austin Dillon pitted along with Logano, Reddick, Erik Jones, DiBenedetto.

Just three laps shy of the halfway mark scheduled on Lap 167, the fourth caution of the event flew due to debris reported on the backstretch.

Under caution, the leaders pitted and Larson retained the lead upon exiting his pit stall followed by Kyle Busch, Byron, Keselowski, Harvick and Blaney.

When the race restarted on Lap 170, Larson received a push from teammate Byron to maintain the lead ahead of Kyle Busch and clear the field. While Byron and Kyle Busch battled for second, Penske teammates Blaney and Keselowski dueled for fourth and more while Harvick was in sixth.

By Lap 180, Larson was leading by three-tenths of a second over teammate Byron while Blaney, Keselowski and Harvick were in the top five. While Kurt Busch was up in sixth, brother Kyle was back in seventh ahead of Hamlin, Briscoe and Truex.

At the Lap 200 mark, Larson continued to lead by six-tenths of a second over teammate Byron while Blaney, Harvick and Keselowski remained in the top five. Kurt Busch, Briscoe, Hamlin and Reddick were running sixth through ninth while Kyle Busch was mired back in 10th ahead of Truex and Logano.

When the second stage concluded on Lap 210, Larson, who encountered brief lapped traffic, fended off a hard-charging, teammate Byron and notched his 16th stage victory of the season. Blaney fended off Harvick to finish behind the two Hendrick Motorsports teammates while Keselowski, Kurt Busch, Hamlin, Briscoe, Reddick and Kyle Busch were scored in the top 10. The Playoff contenders finishing outside of the top-10 stage points spots were Truex (11th), Logano, (12th) and Elliott (15th).

Under the stage break, the leaders pitted and Larson retained the lead following his service and after beating teammate Byron back to the pit exit line. Keselowski followed suit along with Blaney, Kurt Busch and Harvick. Following the pit stops, Daniel Suarez was penalized for speeding on pit road.

With 118 laps remaining, the final stage commenced. At the start, Larson was being pushed by Blaney on the inside lane while Byron was being pushed by Keselowski on the outside lane. Entering the backstretch, however, Larson persevered for the lead while Blaney challenged Byron for second.

The following lap, Kurt Busch, who was in sixth, dropped off the pace through the backstretch and made his way to pit road under green for two fresh left-side tires.

Back at the front, Larson was leading by a narrow margin over teammate Byron while Harvick was in third along with Keselowski, Blaney, Hamlin, Logano, Kyle Busch, Briscoe and Reddick.

With 110 laps remaining, Larson slowly started to pull away with the lead while Harvick and Byron battled for second ahead of Keselowski and Blaney.

Down to the final 100 laps of the event, Larson stretched his advantage to more than a second over teammate Byron while Keselowski, Blaney and Harvick were in the top five. Reddick was up in sixth followed by Briscoe, Hamlin, Logano and Kyle Busch while Elliott and Truex were in 11th and 12th.

With 75 laps remaining, teammates Larson and Byron remained in first and second despite both battling vibration issues to their respective Chevrolets. Keselowski was in third, trailing by three seconds, while Blaney and Reddick remained in the top five. By then, Kyle Busch was outside of the top 10 in 11th while Elliott occupied 10th place. Not long after, Bell pitted under green.

Fifteen laps later, the caution flew when Briscoe, who was having a strong run in the top 10 and was battling Hamlin earlier before making contact with Hamlin and touching the Turn 4 outside wall, cut a right-rear tire and shredded debris through the backstretch.

Under caution, the leaders pitted and Larson retained the lead followed by Byron, Keselowski, Reddick, Hamlin and Blaney.

With 54 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Larson received a push from Keselowski to clear teammate Byron and remain as the leader ahead of the field.

Four laps later, the battle for the lead started to ignite as Byron challenged Larson for the lead. Despite keeping his leader and teammate within his sights, Byron still could not gain a run to seal the deal over Larson.

Another 10 laps later, Larson stabilized his advantage to three-tenths of a second over teammate Byron and six-tenths of a second over Keselowski while Reddick trailed by less than a second. Blaney was in fifth ahead of Hamlin, who had Daniel Suarez and Elliott closing in. Harvick and Logano were in the top 10 just ahead of Kyle Busch and Truex.

With 36 laps remaining, the seventh caution of the event flew when the motor on Logano’s No. 22 AAA Ford Mustang blew up through the backstretch, which forced the 2018 Cup champion to end his race in the garage and place an early blow to start the Round of 8.

Under caution, some led by Elliott pitted while the rest led by Larson remained on the track.

Down to the final 30 laps of the event, the race restarted under green as Larson and Byron dueled for the lead followed by Reddick and Keselowski. Just then, the caution returned as Kyle Busch got Buescher sideways while rookie Anthony Alfredo, who made contact with teammate Michael McDowell, spun and backed his car into the outside wall in Turn 1. As Alfredo’s car slid down the track, fire then erupted beneath Alfredo’s car and the Turn 1 surface, though Alfredo was able to safely exit out of his car. The incident was enough for the event to be red-flagged for 11 minutes.

When the red flag was lifted and the race restarted with 25 laps remaining, Larson received a push from Reddick to remain as the leader while Reddick challenged Byron for second. Behind, Hamlin made his way into fourth place ahead of Blaney while Keselowski slipped to sixth ahead of Harvick.

The following lap, a three-wide action occurred between Hamlin, Blaney and Harvick as they battled for fourth for a full lap in front of Truex and Kyle Busch. Then, Blaney made contact with Hamlin entering the frontstretch, which resulted in a tire rub and smoke coming out of Hamlin’s No. 11 Craftsman Toyota. Despite the contact, Hamlin, for the moment, continued in seventh behind Keselowski, Harvick and Blaney.

Back at the front, Larson continued to lead ahead Reddick, who overtook Byron for second as Keselowski remained in the hunt.

Then nearing the final 20 laps of the event, the caution returned when Hamlin spun through the backstretch after cutting the left-rear tire, which came from the contact with Blaney. Despite having minimum damage to his car, Hamlin, who also had a flat right-front tire, pitted and continued.

Down to the final 16 laps of the event, the race restarted under green. At the start, Byron shoved teammate Larson to the lead before trying to fend off Reddick and Harvick for second.

Shortly after, the 10th caution of the event flew when Truex, who was bumped by Suarez, made hard contact into the Turn 3 outside wall before limping his No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry to his pit stall with significant right-side damage. The damage was enough to knock Truex out of contention in the closing stages of the event.

With nine laps remaining, the race restarted as teammates Larson and Byron retained the front row. At the start, Larson received another strong shove on the inside lane from Reddick to retain the lead. While Byron retained second, Reddick also fended off Keselowski, Blaney, Bell and Harvick to settle in third while challenging Byron for more.

With seven laps remaining, Reddick slipped beneath Byron in Turn 3 while trying to take second, which resulted with Reddick slipping out of the top five as Larson ran away with the lead.

Just then, the 11th caution flew when Briscoe and Buescher made contact entering the backstretch, which resulted with Buescher spinning and getting hit by Hamlin before making hard contact with the inside wall and ending his race with a wrecked race car.

With the race set to a two-lap shootout, the green flag waved as teammates Larson and Byron occupied the front row once again. At the start, Larson was able to clear Byron entering the first two turns to keep the lead as the field battled and fanned out behind.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Larson continued to lead while Keselowski challenged Byron for second. With the side-by-side battles occurring behind him, Larson streaked away from the field and came back around to claim his eighth checkered flag of the 2021 season.

By claiming his 14th NASCAR Cup Series career win and sweeping both Texas Motor Speedway Cup events of this season (he won the All-Star Race at Texas in June), Larson will make his first appearance in the Championship 4 Round as a title contender as he looks to deliver a second consecutive title for Hendrick Motorsports.

“This is unreal,” Larson said on NBC. “I knew we’d have a good shot to win today and our car was amazing. That’s probably the best 550 [mph] package, intermediate car we’ve had all year. Thanks to everybody on this No. 5 team, HendrickCars.com, [owner] Rick Hendrick. This is so cool. We get to go race for a championship in a few weeks. This is crazy. I just got good pushes from behind me, really. I tried to stay patient on the throttle, to keep them to my back bumper and thankfully, I was able to just barely clear them every time into [Turn] 1 and not have to fight them off of [Turn] 2. Thanks to William [Byron], Tyler [Reddick], Brad Keselowski, anybody who was ever behind me, especially Brad there that last restart. Just awesome to win and hope we can get some more wins throughout the rest of the year.”

“I don’t think we’re gonna lose focus on Kansas [Speedway] or Martinsville [Speedway], but I definitely think we can shift a little bit more to Phoenix [Raceway] car,” Larson added. “Really look forward to that. I love the West Coast. I love Phoenix. We’ve always been fast there. I think we should have a good shot. Our team’s been so strong all year long and might as well close it out now.”

Byron received a push from Bell through the frontstretch to claim the runner-up spot, which moved Bell up to third and dropped Keselowski to fourth while Harvick finished in the top five.

“It’s all about the push,” Byron said. “I think here at Texas, the shortest lane kind of wins out because of the way the track kind of separates into Turn 1. The AXALTA Chevy was fast all day. We just never quite got control. I think [Larson] was definitely better than us that first stage and then, I was right there with him the rest of the time and it was just clean air, basically. Congrats to [Larson]. Kyle really deserves it. They’ve been awesome all year, flawless on pit road, pit calls and everything. Our team’s right there and I think we’re building something really good for years to come.”

“The last few times we’ve been here, you get 40-, 50-, 100-lap runs in the end and jeez, we didn’t run more than two laps at the time for the last 45, 50 laps,” Keselowski said. “That’s not what we needed. We needed the long runs to be able to keep them honest. We had the long-run speed. Those guys were just blistering fast, [Larson] and [Byron]. Every restart, they just drove away from me. It’s kind of like, ‘Come on, give me some laps and let their stuff wear down!’ Just wasn’t the way it played out. We gained a point, but we moved up from eighth to sixth [in the standings], so that’s a nice little win for us. If you keep running like that, scoring high 30s, low 40s in points, we’ll transfer in.”

Finishing in the top 10 were Blaney, Elliott, Kyle Busch, Reddick and Suarez. Hamlin, meanwhile, limped across the finish line in 11th place and with damage to the front nose of his car following his involvement in the previous caution.

“It just gets wild and crazy,” Blaney said. “There’s not a ton of room here to kind of go on restarts and then, just trying to help each lane kind of move forward. You hope the lane you pick moves forward and I thought we could run third or fourth. I thought the top two, [Larson] and [Byron], were pretty spectacular. I thought we could run third or fourth and just lost a couple of spots here and there on each restart. Gained one, lose one and then, we ended up sixth. Proud of the Dex Imaging Ford Mustang team today. Good stage points. We got a good finish out of it. Go on to Kansas and keep on at it…Just gotta keep doing what you’re doing. I don’t think you can ever get comfortable unless you’re [Larson] right now for the next two races. You just have to keep racing like you have been. We did a good job on pit road and didn’t make any mistakes today. Had a fast enough car to run up at the front. You hope to bring that every single week. We’ll keep on focusing on one race at a time.”

“I thought by the end, we were decent,” Elliott said. “Just by that point, obviously, too late…Congrats to Kyle. Hopefully, we can join those guys in Phoenix. I’m looking forward to these next two weeks. I think we can run good at the next couple [races]. We all got to be super close in points. I feel like we just go do our jobs these next two weeks and control what’s in our hands. and we’ll be alright. “

“We probably missed four or five points there at the end of the day, but we missed four or five points at the stage as well, too” Kyle Busch said. “That’s about all we missed out on. We just didn’t have it. Certainly, [Larson] and [Byron] were the class of the field again. We were just slow. I found some laps where I could run wide open and I was able to just barely, barely, barely make the same time as them. Anytime I had to get out of the gas, they would just drive away. Got to go back to the drawing board for next week. Try to figure out some better stuff for Kansas. We’ll go get’em next week.”

“We just didn’t have quite a fast-enough car,” Hamlin said. “I thought we were fifth at best, honestly. Two wrecks at the end. [Blaney] just got bounced up into us there. We got our tire cut, hit the wall and then, [Buescher] and [Briscoe] got into it there and came across the nose. The fact that there was that much attrition was a good thing for us because we were able to rally on that green-white-checkered to get to 11th…I’m pretty optimistic about next week at Kansas. We need some tools to fix this car because it is destroyed.”

There were eight lead changes for five different leaders. The race featured 11 cautions for 55 laps. Only 15 of 39 starters finished on the lead lap.

Results.

1. Kyle Larson, 256 laps led, Stage 2 winner

2. William Byron, 55 laps led

3. Christopher Bell

4. Brad Keselowski

5. Kevin Harvick

6. Ryan Blaney

7. Chase Elliott

8. Kyle Busch, 20 laps led, Stage 1 winner

9. Tyler Reddick

10. Daniel Suarez

11. Denny Hamlin, two laps led

12. Erik Jones

13. Matt DiBenedetto

14. Austin Dillon

15. Chase Briscoe

16. Kurt Busch, two laps down

17. Michael McDowell, two laps down

18. Aric Almirola, three laps down

19. Cole Custer, four laps down

20. Corey LaJoie, five laps down

21. Chris Buescher – OUT, Accident

22. BJ McLeod, 10 laps down

23. David Starr, 11 laps down

24. Garrett Smithley, 13 laps down

25. Martin Truex Jr. – OUT, Accident, one lap led

26. Josh Bilicki, 15 laps down

27. Timmy Hill, 17 laps down

28. Ross Chastain, 23 laps down

29. Anthony Alfredo – OUT, Accident

30. Joey Logano – OUT, Engine

31. Quin Houff – OUT, Suspension

32. Bubba Wallace – OUT, Accident

33. Alex Bowman – OUT, Accident

34. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – OUT, Accident

35. Ryan Newman – OUT, Accident

36. Ryan Preece – OUT, Accident

37. Justin Haley – OUT, Accident

38. Cody Ware – OUT, Accident

39. Joey Gase – OUT, Accident

Bold indicates Playoff contenders.

Playoff standings.

1. Kyle Larson – Advanced

2. Ryan Blaney, +17

3. Denny Hamlin, +9

4. Kyle Busch, +8

5. Chase Elliott, -8

6. Brad Keselowski, -15

7. Martin Truex Jr., -22

8. Joey Logano, -43

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will continue next weekend at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, October 24, which will occur at 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

October 17, 2021
Larson rallies to win at the Charlotte Roval; Playoff’s Round of 8 set

Not even an early electrical issue could prevent Kyle Larson from continuing his quest for his first NASCAR Cup Series championship after the Elk Grove, California, native rallied to lead the final eight laps and win the Bank of America Roval 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course on Sunday, October 10.

The victory gave Larson an automatic pass to the Round of 8 in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs as the penultimate round in the Playoffs was determined and left some big names out of the championship battle.

The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Playoff contender Denny Hamlin started on pole position and was joined on the front row with Brad Keselowski.

Prior to the event, Garrett Smithley dropped to the rear of the field due to his car failing pre-race inspection twice.

When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Hamlin and Keselowski dueled for the lead through the first four turns until Hamlin was able to break free and clear Keselowski. Exiting the infield turns, Hamlin continued to lead through the backstretch oval turns, the backstretch chicane and the frontstretch chicane as he led the first lap.

Behind Hamlin, Joey Logano started to challenge teammate Kesleowski for second while Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell battled for fourth ahead of Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.

The following lap, Hamlin continued to lead by more than two seconds while Logano muscled his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang into the runner-up spot over Keselowski’s No. 2 Wurth Ford Mustang. While Blaney settled in fourth, Elliott moved his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE into fifth over Bell entering Turns 5 and 6.

By the fifth lap, Hamlin was leading by more than two seconds over Logano while Blaney, Keselowski and Elliott were in the top five. Bell was in sixth followed by Larson, William Byron, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch while Martin Truex Jr. and Alex Bowman were in 11th and 12th, all of whom were in the Playoffs. Behind, Aric Almirola spun in the backstretch chicane following contact from Chris Buescher but continued under green.

Three laps later, Hamlin stabilized his advantage to more than two seconds over Logano as Blaney, Keselowski and Elliott remained in the top five. By then, Truex, who started fifth but was struggling with early pace, slipped back to 13th behind Kurt Busch. Meanwhile, Austin Dillon was in 14th ahead of teammate Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones, Bubba Wallace was in 18th behind rookie Chase Briscoe, Matt DiBenedetto was in 20th in between Buescher and Michael McDowell, AJ Allmendinger was in 24th behind Corey LaJoie, Ryan Newman was in 25th ahead of Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez and Cole Custer, and rookie Anthony Alfredo was in 31st ahead of Justin Haley.

A lap prior to the competition caution scheduled on Lap 10, the strategic game began as names like Harvick, Bell, Truex, Bell, Kyle Busch, Suarez, Corey LaJoie, Erik Jones, Briscoe, Buescher, Cole Custer, DiBenedetto and Almirola pitted under green. During the pit stops, Bell was penalized for speeding on pit road.

Just as Hamlin was returning to the frontstretch to complete the 10th lap, he directed his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry to pit road along with Byron, Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain. Hamlin’s move allowed Logano to inherit the lead as the competition caution flew.

Under the competition caution, some led by Bubba Wallace pitted while others led by Logano remained on the track.

When the race resumed on Lap 13, teammates Logano and Blaney dueled for the lead through the first three turns until Blaney emerged as the new leader exiting the infield turns and entering the oval turns.

In the backstretch chicane, Keselowski spun off the front bumper of Bowman, which moved Larson and Hamlin to fourth and fifth behind Elliott while Bowman fell back to 11th behind Harvick. Keselowski, meanwhile, was in 38th.

By Lap 15, Blaney was leading by nearly eight-tenths of a second over teammate Logano while Elliott, Larson and Hamlin, the first competitor on fresh tires, were in the top five. Allmendinger was in sixth ahead of Kyle Busch, Byron, Kurt Busch and Harvick while Truex, Bowman and Bell were in 12th, 15th and 16th.

Five laps later, the second caution of the event flew when Ryan Newman, who spun a lap earlier in the infield turns, lost a right-rear tire, spun again and wrecked in Turn 14, narrowly avoiding Keselowski.

Under caution, some led by Larson and Hamlin pitted while the rest led by Blaney remained on the track. Following the pit stops, Hamlin was assessed a speeding penalty.

With three laps remaining in the second stage, the race restarted under green. At the start, Blaney jumped ahead on the outside lane before Allmendinger crossed over beneath Blaney and challenged him for the top spot through the first three turns. Shortly after, Allmendinger, winner of Saturday’s Xfinity event at the Roval, assumed command while Elliott challenged Blaney for the runner-up spot, which he succeeded exiting Turn 8.

The following lap, Allmendinger was ahead of nearly four-tenths of a second over Elliott while Blaney, Truex and Logano were in the top five. Behind, Matt DiBenedetto missed the backstretch chicane and was forced to come to a stop before continuing to serve his penalty. In addition, Ryan Preece got turned exiting the front stretch chicane following contact with Logano, but the race continued under green.

On the final lap of the first stage, Elliott issued a challenge on Allmendinger for the top spot exiting the infield turns. Behind, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. made contact with Kyle Busch exiting the backstretch chicane, but Busch prevailed ninth.

Following a brief fight against Allmendinger exiting the infield turns and returning to the oval turns, Elliott prevailed through the backstretch chicane. Elliott’s late perseverance and charge allowed him to come back around through the frontstretch chicane and win the first stage on Lap 25, which marked his fourth stage victory of the season. Allmendinger settled in second followed by Blaney, Truex, Logano, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Byron, McDowell and Harvick. By then, Larson was in 11th, Bowman was in 14th, Hamlin was mired in 21st and Bell was back in 26th.

Under the stage break, some led by Elliott pitted while the rest led by Allmendinger remained on the track.

The second stage started on Lap 29 as Allmendinger and Kyle Busch occupied the front row ahead of Byron, McDowell, Harvick and Larson. At the start, Kyle Busch muscled his No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry into the lead following a battle with Allmendinger from the second turn through Turn 5. Shortly after, Byron moved his No. 24 Valvoline Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE to second place. Behind, Harvick and Larson battled for fourth.

Through the first 30 laps of the event, Kyle Busch was leading by half a second over Byron while Allmendinger, Larson, Harvick, Austin Dillon, McDowell, Bowman, Custer and Suarez were in the top 10. Hamlin was in 13th, Keselowski and Bell were in 15th and 16th, Elliott was in 19th and Blaney was in 24th ahead of Truex and Logano.

Three laps later, the fourth caution of the event flew when Stenhouse made contact and turned Chase Briscoe in a cloud of smoke across the frontstretch.

Under caution, some led by Larson and Allmendinger pitted while the rest led by Kyle Busch remained on the track. During the pit stops, Larson’s crew popped the hood of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE open to change the battery. Teammate Bowman’s crew also popped the hood open on the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE to replace an alternator belt with plans on replacing the battery following the second stage.

When the race restarted on Lap 35, Kyle Busch launched ahead with the top spot entering the first turn while Harvick moved into second place ahead of Byron, Austin Dillon, McDowell and Suarez.

Two laps later, Kyle Busch was leading by one-and-a-half seconds over Harvick and Byron, both of whom were currently scored below the top-eight cutline to the Playoff’s Round of 8. Behind, Elliott was up in sixth behind McDowell, Hamlin was in eighth, teammate Bell was in 11th, Blaney was in 16th, Keselowski was in 20th behind Allmendinger, Logano was in 21st, Truex was in 23rd, Bowman was in 29th and Larson was in 30th.

Through the first 40 laps of the event, Kyle Busch continued to lead by a second over Harvick while Byron, Austin Dillon and Elliott were in the top five. Behind, LaJoie came to a full stop after missing the frontstretch chicane. In addition, Bell drove through the grass in Turns 5 and 6. Earlier, Wallace came to a stop after missing the frontstretch chicane.

By Lap 45, Custer spun entering the first turn, but the race proceeded under green. By then, Kyle Busch was out in front by more than a second over Harvick while Elliott was up in third ahead of Byron and Austin Dillon. By then, Larson was in 18th behind Logano, Keselowski and Truex while Bowman was in 22nd behind Bell.

A few laps later, Chastain, Wallace and LaJoie pitted under green. Not long after, Byron, Austin Dillon, Allmendinger, Hamlin, Almirola, Briscoe, Suarez, DiBenedetto, Bell, Buescher, Kurt Busch, Custer Tyler Reddick, McDowell and Alfredo pitted.

Back on course, Kyle Busch continued to lead ahead of Harvick, who had rival Elliott charging for the runner-up spot. Following a smooth lap around the 17-course turn, Kyle Busch was able to claim his sixth stage victory of the season with the second stage concluded on Lap 50. Elliott overtook Harvick to settle in second followed by Blaney, Logano, Larson, Keselowski, Truex, Bowman and Byron.

Under the stage break, Bowman pitted while pit road was closed to have a voltage regulator on his car changed, which resulted in a penalty for Bowman to start at the rear of the field. Once pit road opened for the field, a majority of the field led by Kyle Busch pitted while others led by Byron and Austin Dillon remained on the track. Meanwhile, Larson’s crew went to work to change the alternator belt while giving Larson four fresh tires and fuel to last to the end. As the field began to stack up for a restart, Larson’s crew was able to repair the mechanical issue and get the driver back out on the lead lap while behind the field.

With 56 laps remaining, the final stage commenced. At the start, Byron was able to retain the lead over Austin Dillon entering the first turn and the infield turns as the field fanned out and jostled for positions.

At the halfway mark between Laps 54 and 55, Byron was leading by a mere margin over Austin Dillon while Hamlin, Suarez and Allmendinger were in the top five. Just then, the caution returned when Elliott, winner of the previous two Cup Roval events, got hit by Harvick and sent into the wall in between Turns 7 and 8, which damaged the rear end and deck lid of Elliott’s car. As Elliott tried to continue through Turn 8, he made contact with Custer and spun below the apron. Despite the damage and a reported broken track bar, Elliott managed to continue as he was slated in 37th. The incident, however, reignited Harvick and Elliott’s rivalry following their confrontation at Bristol Motor Speedway in September, where Elliott cost Harvick an opportunity to win.

With 52 laps remaining, the field restarted under green. At the start, Byron retained the lead while Hamlin battled Austin Dillon for the runner-up spot ahead of Suarez. Shortly after, Allmendinger, who was in fifth, fell off the pace due to an engine issue entering the backstretch chicane, which forced the field to scatter to avoid Allmendinger’s Kaulig Racing machine as the Californian took his car to the garage.

Down to the final 50 laps of the event, Byron, coming into the Roval in a “must-win” situation, was leading by more than a second over Austin Dillon while Hamlin, Reddick and Suarez were in the top five. By then, Harvick was in 13th in front of Blaney, Kyle Busch was in 20th in between Keselowski and Truex, Larson was in 23rd behind Wallace, Bowman was in 26th and Elliott was mired in 36th, the last car on the lead lap. By then, Larson and Kyle Busch were barely above the top-eight cutline while Harvick, Elliott, Bell and Bowman were the four competitors scored below the cutline.

Ten laps later, Hamlin missed the backstretch chicane while trying to overtake Austin Dillon for the runner-up spot and served his penalty by coming to a full stop on the frontstretch chicane.

When the field returned to the front stretch, Byron remained in the lead by over Austin Dillon while Reddick, Kurt Busch and Buescher were in the top five. Hamlin fell back to sixth ahead of Suarez, DiBenedetto, Blaney and Chastain. Harvick was in 11th ahead of Erik Jones, Bell was in 14th in front of Logano, Larson moved up to 16th ahead of Keselowski and Kyle Busch was back in 18th ahead of teammate Truex and Bowman. Elliott, meanwhile, was mired in 34th and gaining no ground on the leaders.

A few laps later, Reddick, who was one of the fastest cars on the circuit, overtook teammate Austin Dillon for second as he trailed Byron by less than three seconds.

With 35 laps remaining, Larson, who was in the top 15, ignited green flag pit stops as he pitted followed by Bell. A lap later, Harvick and Logano pitted along with Kyle Busch, Truex, LaJoie and Briscoe. Another lap later, Byron surrendered the lead to pit along with Reddick, teammate Austin Dillon, Keselowski, Blaney, Suarez and Erik Jones.

Soon after, Kurt Busch, who led a lap, pitted his No. 1 Monster Energy Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, giving the lead to Buescher and Hamlin. By then, Wallace, Preece, Custer and Joey Hand also pitted.

With 30 laps remaining, Hamlin, who has yet to pit, was leading followed by DiBenedetto and Byron, who was trailing by more than 14 seconds.

Two laps later, Hamlin pitted and gave the lead back to Byron, who had Tyler Reddick closing in on him for the lead. By then, Elliott, whose rear bumper cover was loose, was 86 seconds behind and on the verge of being lapped by his Hendrick Motorsports’ teammate.

With 23 laps remaining, the caution flew when the rear bumper cover from Elliott’s car came off on the backstretch. Under caution, a majority of the field led by Byron pitted while the rest led by Hamlin and DiBenedetto remained on the track. Following the pit stops, Bowman was busted for speeding on pit road, which sent him to the rear of the field and negatively affect his hopes of advancing to the Round of 8.

Down to the final 20 laps of the event, the race restarted under green. At the start, Hamlin retained the lead as the field fanned out and jostled for positions entering the first turn. Behind, Reddick moved up to second while Byron battled for third against DiBenedetto. Behind, Kurt Busch and Larson battled for fifth with the latter prevailing.

Through the backstretch chicane, Keselowski spun again and caused a stack up to the competitors running towards the back. With the race remaining under green, Byron ignited a battle on Reddick for second as Hamlin continued to lead by a narrow margin.

Just then, Byron missed the backstretch chicane after getting hit by Reddick while running in front of Reddick and Larson in second. Despite stopping on the backstretch, the penalty was costly for Byron, who needed to win to keep his title hopes alive.

Back at the front, Hamlin was leading by more than a second over Larson, Reddick, DiBenedetto and Kurt Busch. Logano was in seventh, Blaney was in ninth ahead of Kyle Busch, Byron was back in 12th ahead of Harvick and Truex. Bell was in 17th while Elliott was in 21st behind LaJoie. Bowman was mired back in 29th.

Shortly after, the eighth caution of the event flew when LaJoie smacked the Turn 2 wall following contact with Custer as Joey Hand also collided into the wall.

Under caution, some including Stenhouse, Alfredo, Preece, Keselowski, Almirola, Bowman, LaJoie and Hand pitted while the rest led by Hamlin remained on the track.

With 14 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Hamlin launched ahead with another strong start while Reddick battled Larson for second as the field fanned out entering the first turn. Shortly after, Larson issued a challenge for the lead over Hamlin. Through the infield turns, Larson squeaked ahead with the top spot, but Hamlin fought back through the backstretch chicane as Reddick also challenged Larson for the runner-up spot through Turn 13. Behind, Kurt Busch missed the frontstretch chicane after slipping.

Back at the front, Hamlin was leading by a narrow margin over Reddick, who prevailed over his late battle and contact with Larson as Buescher was in fourth. Behind Logano moved up to fifth over DiBenedetto while Harvick, Byron and Kyle Busch were in the top 10. Elliott, meanwhile, was in 17th while Keselowski was in 24th.

Then with 11 laps remaining, Kevin Harvick’s title hopes for 2021 evaporated after he locked up the front tires of his No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang and pounded against the barriers in Turn 1 while running in the top 15, thus damaging the front nose of his car. At the time of the incident, Elliott had caught Harvick, but Harvick’s incident involved no contact with Elliott.

“I just pushed [the car] in there too hard,” Harvick, who was released from the care center and deflected any comments over his incident with Elliott, said. “I got the tire locked up and I couldn’t stop it once I felt like I needed to go, to get a couple spots back that I’d lost and I got the left front locked up, but I couldn’t get it to turn. Sometime, real life teaches you good lessons.”

Under caution, some including Elliott, Truex and Keselowski pitted while the rest led by Hamlin remained on the track.

Down to the final eight laps of the event, the race restarted under green. At the start, Hamlin pulled ahead through the first turn, but Larson made his move and took over the lead exiting Turn 4. Behind, Reddick moved up to second while Byron battled Buescher for fourth.

Through the backstretch chicane, Byron muscled his way up to third, but he now had seven laps to return to the front and maintain his title hopes.

The following lap, Larson was ahead by nearly a second over runner-up Reddick and less than two seconds teammate Byron. Behind, Buescher maintained fourth while Hamlin was back in sixth behind teammate Kyle Busch. Meanwhile, Bell was in ninth, Bowman was in 14th, Elliott was in 20th and Keselowski was in 28th behind Truex.

With five laps remaining, Larson continued to lead by less than a second over Reddick, who had Byron trying to pressure him for the runner-up spot.

Down to the final two laps, Larson stabilized his advantage to more than a second over Reddick and Byron. Just then, Byron’s title hopes dwindled as he spun and damaged his No. 24 car in Turn 5. Despite the incident, Byron continued as the race remained under green. Earlier, Truex spun on the backstretch following contact with Joey Hand.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Larson remained in the lead by more than a second over Reddick. Behind, Buescher moved up to third followed by Kyle Busch and Hamlin. Byron, meanwhile, continued in 11th ahead of teammate Elliott.

Navigating his way through the 17-turn course smoothly, Larson, who was scored outside the cutline early, came back around and claimed the checkered flag for the first time on the Roval and for the seventh time in 2021.

With the victory, Larson became the third different winner at the Charlotte Roval as he achieved his third road course victory of 2021. In addition, he notched his 13th career win in the Cup Series and swept both Cup Charlotte events of the season.

“I wouldn’t have believed it, that’s for sure,” Larson said on NBC. “I don’t know. I didn’t even really feel that good early, started changing some things up. [The crew] were doing a good job, letting me know what to do inside the cockpit to get better. About that time, I noticed my battery was going low, so I was gonna stress out. I’m like, ‘Man, I’m not gonna get knocked out of the Playoffs like this.’ It wasn’t looking too good. Thankfully, everybody on our No. 5 car did a great job of staying calm. [Crew chief] Cliff [Daniels], as always, did a great job communicating with me with what was going on, getting the battery changed, alternator, whatever it takes to get our battery staying running. Just an awesome day for Hendrick Motorsports and glad to get another win. Looking forward to the next round a lot.”

Reddick settled in second place for the third time in his Cup career while Buescher, Kyle Busch and Hamlin finished in the top five. DiBenedetto, Logano, Bell, Blaney and Bowman ended up in the top 10 on the track.

After settling in 12th place and earning enough points to advance to the Round of 8, Elliott maintained his composure when expressing his side of the incident with Harvick.

“[I’m] Really proud of our team,” Elliott said. “Our NAPA team did a really, really good job of fixing this [car]. It is destroyed and I think we finished 12th. Our team has a lot of fight and I’m just super proud of that. As far as Kevin goes, just wanna wish them Merry Offseason and a happy Christmas. It’s all good. Just glad we’re moving on. Proud of our team. We’re just eyes forward and just excited to be moving on. That’s the big picture. That’s really all that matters to me and our group, so we’ll keep fighting and see where we end up.”

Photo by Ted Seminara for SpeedwayMedia.com.

Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski have transferred into the Round of 8 in the Playoffs. Kevin Harvick, William Byron, Christopher Bell and Alex Bowman have been eliminated from title contention.

“Glad to finally be able to finish one today,” Kyle Busch said. “Thanks to M&M’s, all the guys on the team. [They] Did a good job, brought a good car, got the most out of it. We won that [second] stage. That helped a little bit for the reset going into next week and gave us one more point. Overall, we got everything we could out of it today. I wished there was more, but it kind of seemed like once everybody got strung out, that was about it. There wasn’t a whole lot of comers and goers throughout the runs, so overall, that’s kind of where we stacked out.”

“We got the good out of [the car],” Logano said. “So much for keeping it clean. That was the plan. Just ended up having a rough day, but ended up finishing seventh or even a shot at a top-five or top three even towards the end of the race there. Proud of our Shell/Pennzoil team. I got into [Ryan] Preece and dumped him early in the race. That was just my mistake. Overall, hey, we’re moving on to the Round of 8. It’s a great accomplishment, we’re proud of that. On to the next three [races] and try to score a bunch of points, maybe, or get a win. That might be the easiest way doing it, but we’ll maximize our races and get every point we can.”

“I was behind two guys side-by-side getting into the bus stop, so we’re all checked up, just trying to not get run over when we get run over,” Truex said. “I don’t know what the hell [Hand] was thinking. Riding around the back all day and he drives through a Playoff car for no reason. Luckily, we were able to come through, make it, pulled out some stage points. Really, that was the difference. Good strategy, terrible race car. We sucked. It was awful…It was just absolute garbage. Glad we made it. That’s all I can say, I guess. Thanks to everybody for all the support this year. Go on to the next round, see what we can do. It’s all reset.”

“Just not a good day,” Keselowski said. “[I] Had some decent speed. I think we could’ve run about 10th all day. Had a couple of restarts where we just kind of got ran over. We fought back from that best we could with the Wurth Ford Mustang. Salvaged what we could with a 20th-place day, but nowhere near what we were hoping for. Enough to get on and go to Texas.”

“Ultimately, we just weren’t good enough,” Bell said. “Made a lot of mistakes out there. We just weren’t fast enough. Bummer, but we’ll have to move on and I think we’ve got opportunities to win races every time we go to the race tracks. Building a notebook between me and [crew chief] Adam [Stevens]. Really proud to be in this No. 20 group, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. Got good race tracks coming up and we’re gonna go out there and give it our all, and end the season on a high note.”

“Unfortunate,” Bowman said. “It’s tough to make a car live long here without any brake fans and tire cooling. [Crew chief] Greg [Ives] and all the guys on this Ally No. 48 team did such a good job, I guess, letting me know what I needed to do, to get it to the finish line and what I could and couldn’t do with fans. We put a battery in it at one point and kind of went from there. I’m exhausted. I’m just mentally drained after the roller coaster that was, but good to get a top 10. Wished we had more. Congrats to [Larson]. The kid’s superhuman. Bummed we’re not in the next round.”

Following the event, Byron, who ended up in 11th, had a post-race conversation with Reddick to express his displeasure over being hit by Reddick late in the event while battling towards the front and caused Byron to miss the backstretch chicane.

“I just passed [Reddick] off of Turn 8 and I guess he had [Larson] inside of him,” Byron said. “Just lack of awareness, like hit me in the back bumper right as I was downshifting to first gear, so there was no way I was going to make the chicane. It’s the lightest the car can be right there, so I don’t get it. He and I and [Larson] racing for the win and [Hamlin] had old tires, and we were in a good position. Just stinks, but just not the round we wanted. Definitely tough finishes, tough results, but we had speed in two of the three races to definitely advance. Thanks to Valvoline and Chevrolet…It was definitely looking like it was gonna be a really good day, even after the caution, looking like we were gonna have a shot to win. I was just too bad at the end there. Made a mistake and could’ve finished third, but finished 11th. Just stinks.”

“Unfortunately pretty straightforward,” Reddick said. “Just made a mistake, one that meant a lot. Slight bump, maybe a press like this is all it really took to cause wheel-hop, for [Byron’s] car to go sliding off. I hate that, wasn’t in any way what I was trying to do. If I was trying to do that, I would’ve hit him a lot harder. I hate that it happened. I hate that it did what it did. He was racing for everything just like I was. Obviously, his stakes were higher, but just unfortunate.”

There were 15 lead changes for 10 different leaders. The race featured nine cautions for 18 laps. Thirty-one of the 39 starters finished on the lead lap.

Results.

1. Kyle Larson, eight laps led

2. Tyler Reddick

3. Chris Buescher, one lap led

4. Kyle Busch, 22 laps led, Stage 2 winner

5. Denny Hamlin, 25 laps led

6. Matt DiBenedetto

7. Joey Logano, four laps led

8. Christopher Bell

9. Ryan Blaney, 10 laps led

10. Alex Bowman

11. William Byron, 30 laps led

12. Chase Elliott, two laps led, Stage 1 winner

13. Daniel Suarez

14. Bubba Wallace

15. Austin Dillon

16. Michael McDowell

17. Erik Jones

18. Cole Custer

19. Ryan Preece

20. Brad Keselowski

21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

22. Chase Briscoe

23. Ross Chastain

24. Aric Almirola

25. Kurt Busch, two laps led

26. Anthony Alfredo

27. Joey Hand

28. Josh Bilicki

29. Martin Truex Jr.

30. Quin Houff

31. Scott Heckert

32. Timmy Hill, one lap down

33. Kevin Harvick – OUT, Accident

34. Garrett Smithley, 13 laps down

35. Corey LaJoie – OUT, Accident

36. Cody Ware – OUT, Accident

37. Justin Haley – OUT, Engine

38. AJ Allmendinger – OUT, Engine, five laps led

39. Ryan Newman – OUT, Accident

Bold indicates Playoff contenders.

Playoff standings.

1. Kyle Larson – Advanced

2. Denny Hamlin – Advanced

3. Martin Truex Jr. – Advanced

4. Ryan Blaney – Advanced

5. Kyle Busch – Advanced

6. Chase Elliott – Advanced

7. Joey Logano – Advanced

8. Brad Keselowski – Advanced

9. Kevin Harvick – Eliminated

10. Christopher Bell – Eliminated

11. William Byron – Eliminated

12. Alex Bowman – Eliminated

The Round of 8 in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will commence next weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. The event will occur on Sunday, October 17, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.

October 10, 2021
Bubba Wallace makes history, earns first Cup career victory at Talladega

History was made under a wet, cloudy afternoon at Talladega, Alabama, after Bubba Wallace won the rain-shortened YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Monday, October 4, and claimed his first elusive NASCAR Cup Series career win.

Wallace, who dodged a late-race multi-car wreck, stormed to the lead with drafting help from Brad Keselowski with seven laps remaining in the second stage and continued to lead when another multi-car wreck occurred behind him two laps later that drew a caution. Soon after, rain, which dominated the weekend and forced the event to be postponed from its scheduled start on Sunday, October 3, began to pour across the superspeedway venue, which forced NASCAR to red-flag the event and park the field to pit road.

Nearly an hour after the event was red-flagged and with lightning strikes being reported along with continuous rain, NASCAR made the race official and Wallace was handed his first career win at his home track in NASCAR’s premier series and in his 143rd series start, thus becoming the second African-American competitor to win in the Cup level.

The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Denny Hamlin, winner of last weekend’s Playoff event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and last year’s fall event at Talladega, started on pole position and was joined on the front row with teammate Kyle Busch.

Prior to the event, Quin Houff and Joey Gase started at the rear of the field due to failing pre-race inspection twice. James Davison also started at the rear of the field for replacing David Starr for the event.

Following a one-and-a-half-hour delay due to morning precipitation on the track on Sunday, October 3, the competitors fired up their engines and hit the track in an attempt to commence the event on a cloudy afternoon. Not long after, however, precipitation hit the track again, which forced the pace car to lead the field back on to pit road and under another weather delay.

Then, NASCAR made the call to postpone the event from Sunday to Monday due to the continuous rain and no weather relief in sight.

When the competitors returned a day later, the race was able to start under green on a clear, cloudy afternoon. At the start, Kyle Busch jumped ahead with the lead on the inside lane followed by Chase Elliott while Hamlin slipped to third on the outside lane.

As Kyle Larson, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski started to gain a run exiting the backstretch and entering the frontstretch, Kyle Busch was able to lead the first lap as the field began to fan out to multiple lanes and in a tight pack.

Just past the start/finish line, Logano stormed to the lead on the outside lane with drafting help from teammate Keselowski and Hamlin. Despite receiving a strong push to jump ahead through the backstretch, Logano nearly lost the top spot to Kyle Busch entering the frontstretch, but he was able to lead the following lap by a nose.

Through the first five laps of the event, Kyle Busch, who moved back to the lead on the third lap, was leading ahead of Elliott, Larson Kevin Harvick and Alex Bowman. Tyler Reddick was in sixth ahead of Logano, rookie Chase Briscoe, Matt DiBenedetto and Bubba Wallace. By then, Hamlin pulled his car out of the pack as part of a strategic move and settled his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry in 29th place.

By Lap 10, Harvick, who took over the lead on the sixth lap, was leading ahead of Ford teammates Logano, DiBenedetto, Ryan Blaney, Keselowski and Aric Almirola. Austin Dillon was in seventh ahead of William Byron, Cole Custer and Kyle Busch.

Soon after, the field, which had broken apart and was divided into certain sections of competitors, was back competing in a tight pack within the draft and beginning to fan out to multiple lanes. Then, the field fanned out three lanes deep as Truex, who received drafting help from Wallace, challenged Harvick and DiBenedetto for the lead, which he succeeded on Lap 15 before being overtaken by Larson two laps later.

By Lap 20, Custer, who received drafting help from teammate Harvick, emerged with the lead ahead of Larson, who led the previous three laps, while Logano and Wallace were in the top five ahead of a steaming pack of cars. By then, 38 of the 40 starters were separated by less than six seconds.

When the competition caution flew on Lap 25, Custer was still leading in his No. 41 Autodesk Ford Mustang ahead of Harvick, Logano, Blaney, Elliott, Keselowski and the field that settled through double lanes. By then, names like DiBenedetto, Ryan Newman, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suarez, Aric Almirola, Briscoe, Reddick, Hamlin and Christopher Bell were running outside the top 20 while Truex, Alex Bowman, Byron, Larson and Kyle Busch were back inside the top 20.

Under the competition caution, the majority of the field pitted while 12 competitors led by rookie Anthony Alfredo remained on the track. During the pit stops, Hamlin slid through his pit box and had to back up for fresh tires while Elliott nearly made contact with Cody Ware while exiting his pit stall.

A lap later, the 12 competitors led by Alfredo who remained on the track pitted, giving the lead to Harvick.

When the race restarted on Lap 29, Harvick briefly jumped ahead with the top spot on the inside lane before Truex received a big push from Kurt Busch and Keselowski to take the lead through the backstretch.

Then, Kurt Busch moved his No. 1 Monster Energy Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE to pass Truex on the inside lane and lead the following lap. Truex, though, fought back on the outside lane as the field was engaged in a competitive, tight pack within the draft.

By Lap 35, Harvick, who reassumed the lead a lap earlier, was ahead of Team Penske’s Blaney and Logano. Austin Dillon was up in fourth ahead of Keselowski, Chris Buescher, Hamlin, Custer and the field. Meanwhile, Kurt Busch was in ninth, Truex was in 11th, Kyle Busch was in 14th, Byron was in 20th, teammates Larson and Bowman were in 22nd and 23rd, and Elliott was in 29th.

Approaching the Lap 38 mark, the field fanned out to three lanes at the front as Hamlin challenged Keselowski and Harvick for the top spot. In the middle of the pack, a four-wide action nearly occurred that included Logano.

Through the first 40 laps of the event, Keselowski was leading ahead of Buescher, Hamlin, Logano, Austin Dillon, Harvick and the field. By then, Michael McDowell, who suffered damage under the competition caution and lost in touch with the field and the draft prior to the restart, was lapped by the leaders.

Three laps later, the top-26 competitors were separated by a second as Keselowski challenged and overtook Hamlin, who led the previous two laps, for the top spot. By then, Keselowski had drafting help from Ford teammate Chris Buescher and Logano while Hamlin was trying to keep Bowman in the draft. Meanwhile, Austin Dillon was trying to form a third line on the inside lane, but he was overtaken by the other two lanes that had a multitude of cars within the draft.

By Lap 50 and through the closing laps of the first stage, the majority of the field were running in a long single-file line on the outside lane led by Keselowski. In addition, names like Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, Justin Haley were in the top 10 while names like Ross Chastain, Corey LaJoie, Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick were in the top 15. Justin Allgaier, an Xfinity Series veteran, was in 16th ahead of Elliott.

Four laps later, Buescher, who bumped and moved Keselowski out of the way through the backstretch, led a lap for himself ahead of Logano and Harvick. Keselowski, meanwhile, was back in fourth alongside teammate Blaney.

On Lap 56, the caution flew when Justin Allgaier, running within the top 10, got bumped and turned off the front nose of Byron entering the frontstretch, where he collided against Larson’s No. 5 Cincinnati Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE against the outside wall before sliding across the track and near the pit road exit. Briscoe and Ryan Preece were also involved in the accident.

The early incident concluded the first stage scheduled on Lap 60 under caution as Buescher claimed his second stage victory of the season and the first since Homestead-Miami Speedway in February. Logano, the highest-running Playoff contender, settled in second ahead of Keselowski, Harvick, Reddick, Blaney, Elliott, Ross Chastain, Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman. By then, names like Byron, Kyle Busch and Truex were in the top-17 while Hamlin was in 23rd. Meanwhile, Larson, who was having issues re-firing his car during the repairs, lost a lap to the leaders.

Through the first stage, 12 different competitors had led at least a lap, comprising of 17 different lead changes.

Under the stage break, nearly the entire field pitted while names like Ricky Stenhouse Jr., DiBenedetto and Daniel Suarez remained on the track. Once the competitors who did not pit earlier pitted, Logano was leading ahead of Hamlin, Keselowski, Buescher and Blaney. Meanwhile, Harvick pitted a second time after reporting a flat left-rear tire, which sent him to the rear of the field.

The second stage started on Lap 64. At the start, Logano received a push from teammate Keselowski to maintain the top spot on the inside lane through the first turn while Hamlin challenged Blaney on the outside lane.

The following lap, Kyle Busch intentionally drew his No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry out of the pack to settle behind the pack as Reddick challenged Logano for the lead. Reddick, however, was overpowered by Team Penske’s three Playoff competitors led by Logano’s No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang.

Shortly after, the caution flew when Larson, who continued with the damage on his No. 5 car, lost the right-front tire, smacked the Turn 2 outside wall and shredded debris across the racing surface, making his day go from bad to worse.

Under caution, some led by Reddick and Hamlin pitted, mainly for fuel, while the rest led by Logano and Keselowski remained on the track. By then, Larson, who was four laps behind, was able to continue after meeting the minimum speed allotted while damaged.

On Lap 70, the entire field pitted for enough fuel to complete the second stage with weather threats looming near the track and the teams aiming to reach the halfway point to make the race official. During the pit stops, Hamlin nearly clipped Blaney while trying to enter his pit stall, which cost him time and positions.

Following the pit stops, Cody Ware was the leader ahead of Logano, Keselowski, Buescher, Blaney and Harvick while Bell, Kyle Busch, Reddick and Joey Gase were in the top 10.

Soon after, reports of rain near Turn 1 were reported as the pace car continued to lead the field at a cautious pace. Then on Lap 73, the pace car led the field to pit road and the race was red-flagged for a weather delay and for the jet dryers to dry the racing surface in Turns 1 and 2.

More than 18 laps later, the competitors returned to their cars and re-ignited the engines after the racing surfaces through the first two turns were dried, though weather threats and a flash flood watch remained within sight of the superspeedway venue.

When the field returned to the track, the competitors returned to pit road for another round of topping off with fuel to get to the conclusion of the second stage. Meanwhile, Justin Haley and LaJoie remained on the track ahead of Team Penske’s three competitors along with Buescher, Reddick, Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch and Harvick.

When the race restarted under green on Lap 77, Haley, piloting the No. 16 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for Kaulig Racing, received drafting help from Logano on the inside lane while LaJoie had drafting help from Blaney on the outside lane through the first two turns.

Through the backstretch and entering the frontstretch, a third lane formulated on the outside lane as Buescher jumped ahead of LaJoie to move towards the front. Meanwhile, Haley continued to lead ahead of Logano and Keselowski.

By Lap 80, Bell moved his No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry to the lead as he received drafting help from Harvick and Hamlin while Buescher, who briefly led, nearly wrecked entering the second turn. Meanwhile, Bell was in front of a long single-file line running on the outside lane. In addition, names like Ryan Preece, Stenhouse, Cody Ware, Michael McDowell and Erik Jones were in the top 10.

Four laps later, Hamlin, who moved to the inside lane entering the frontstretch, received a push from former teammate Erik Jones to take the lead over teammate Bell. With Hamlin out in front, Jones and Custer were in second and third while Bell fought back on the outside lane with drafting help from Harvick.

Through 90 laps and with the intensity of the pack racing crescendoing, Harvick, who took over the lead a lap earlier, was leading ahead of Alex Bowman and Bell, who led the previous six of nine laps. Hamlin and Stenhouse were in the top five followed by Elliott, Erik Jones, Keselowski, Custer and Alfredo. By then, the top-36 competitors were separated by three seconds. Meanwhile, Larson was mired back in 39th, four laps behind. In addition, Briscoe was lapped by the field.

At the halfway mark on Lap 94, which would make the race official, Bell, who reassumed the lead two laps earlier, was out in front with drafting help from teammate Hamlin. Bowman then challenged on the outside lane followed by Harvick, Stenhouse, Erik Jones, Elliott, Custer, Keselowski, Buescher and the field mired in a tight three-wide pack.

Three laps later, the caution flew when Alex Bowman, who led the previous lap and was challenging Bell for the lead, was bumped by Stenhouse exiting the backstretch and made head-on contact into the outside wall before he was hit hard by Ross Chastain, which demolished his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. While most of the field dodged the incident, names like Reddick, Kyle Busch, Truex, DiBenedetto, Quin Houff, BJ McLeod and Preece were involved. The wreck, however, placed Bowman in a “must-win” scenario for next weekend’s Playoff event at the Charlotte Roval to keep his title hopes alive.

With 17 laps remaining in the second stage, the race restarted under green as Stenhouse and Bell filled in the front row. At the start, Stenhouse had drafting help from Chase Elliott on the outside lane while Bell had teammate Hamlin and Harvick pushing him on the inside lane through the first two turns.

When the field returned to the frontstretch, Stenhouse maintained the lead followed by Elliott and Keselowski while Bell slipped back to fourth after losing the draft with Hamlin and Harvick. A lap later, though, Bell fought back on the inside lane, but Stenhouse continued to maintain the lead with continuous help from Elliott.

By Lap 108, Kurt Busch, who initially was pushing Bubba Wallace a lap earlier, stormed to the lead ahead of a three-wide cluster of cars with the skies darkening.

Down to the final 10 laps of the second stage, Kurt Busch was leading ahead of Harvick, Bell, Stenhouse and Hamlin while Wallace, Jones, Elliott, Austin Dillon and Keselowski were in the top 10.

Not long after, Harvick was drafted out of the lead pack as Kurt Busch and Stenhouse engaged in a heated duel for the lead.

On Lap 112, Bubba Wallace and Kurt Busch, Wallace’s future teammate at 23XI Racing, dueled for the lead as Wallace received a push from Keselowski on the outside lane to lead the following lap. Wallace then moved his No. 23 McDonald’s Toyota Camry in front of Busch and Bell while Keselowski remained on the outside lane in front of teammate Logano.

With five laps remaining in the second stage, the caution flew when Preece, who was running towards the front, got bumped and turned by Buescher, spun and smacked the backstretch outside wall before he clipped DiBenedetto and Byron, who had flames bursting out of his No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. Like teammate Bowman, the wreck placed Byron in a “must-win” scenario for the Roval to maintain his title hopes.

At the time of caution, Wallace retained the lead ahead of Keselowski and Logano while Kurt Busch and Bell were in the top five. Just then, the skies darkened and the track was overshadowed with scattered rain and clouds, which forced the pace car to lead the field to pit road and to a stop on Lap 117, three laps shy of the second stage.

While Wallace and the field awaited the decision, the jet dryers returned to the track to dry the racing surface. Soon after, reports of continuous precipitation along with lightning were made as nearly the entire grandstands were emptied and the competitors and teams took shelter near their respective pit box.

Then, 17 minutes after the lightning report was made, NASCAR declared the race official and Wallace, who awaited the decision in his pit box, was named the winner, having led the final five laps prior to the call and with the race 71 laps shy of its scheduled distance.

With the victory, Bubba Wallace became the 198th different competitor to win in the NASCAR Cup Series, the third first-time Cup winner of 2021, the 12th first-time winner at Talladega and the second African-American competitor to achieve a win in the NASCAR Cup Series. The first African-American competitor to win in NASCAR occurred in December 1963 made by the late NASCAR Hall of Famer Wendell Scott.

“Part of me was just sitting there waiting,” Wallace, who was anxiously awaiting NASCAR’s decision to declare the race official, said on NBCSN. “It’s not over with. Just sit there, bide our time. If we go racing again, that’s fine. We’ll put ourselves in position. But we had so many cool fans behind us in the pit box, just cheering for it to rain, so it kind of amped up the intensity a little bit.

“Just so proud of everybody at 23XI [Racing],” Wallace added. “New team. Coming in and getting a win late in the season. [It] Reminds me of 2013. Waited so long to get that first Truck win. I know a lot of history was made today, I believe, which is really cool, but it’s about my guys, it’s about our team, it’s about what we’ve done. Appreciate Michael Jordan, appreciate Denny [Hamlin] for believing in me, giving me the opportunity. Like we talk, it’s pretty fitting that it comes here at Talladega.”

When asked about being the second African-American competitor to achieve a win in the NASCAR Cup Series, the emotions began to pour out of Wallace’s face and voice while recognizing the significance.

“I never think about those things,” Wallace said. “When you say it like that, it brings a lot of emotions, lot of joy to my family, fans, friends. It’s pretty damn cool. Just proud to be a winner in the Cup Series.”

Finally, Wallace evoked an inspiring message to future inspirers following his long journey and hurdles to become a NASCAR Cup Series winner.

“This is for all those kids out there that want to have an opportunity, whatever they want to achieve and be the best at what they want to do,” Wallace said. “You’re gonna go through a lot of [expletive], but you always got to stay true to your path and not let the nonsense get to you. Stay strong, stay humble, stay hungry. There’s been plenty of times where I wanted to give up. You surround yourself with the right people and it’s moments like this that you appreciate.”

In addition to Wallace achieving his first win as a driver, the victory was also a first for veteran crew chief Robert “Bootie” Barker, who replaced Mike Wheeler as Wallace’s crew chief in mid-September. It was also the first for 23XI Racing, a newly formed NASCAR team that debuted this season and is co-owned by NASCAR veteran NBA legend Michael Jordan and NASCAR veteran Denny Hamlin.

“It’s just way more emotional [as an owner] because I know how difficult it is,” Hamlin, who finished seventh on the track, said. “These guys just worked so hard over the last 10 months to put this team together. We just spent a lot of hours getting this all put together. It’s great to see the results from all the work from these team guys. It means so much. It’s a learning process. We knew it was gonna be a learning process, but I’m so happy for the team…This is just the building step. We’re still in the beginning stages of our team. We’re still growing. We got some great things on the horizon, but this is just a great moral booster for everyone.”

Wallace’s first Cup victory at Talladega capped off a historic NASCAR triple-header weekend at Talladega filled with first-time winners as Tate Fogleman claimed his first Truck Series career win in a wild finish while Brandon Brown achieved his first Xfinity career win, both occurring on Saturday, October 2.

Wallace’s victory also meant that none of the remaining 11 Playoff contenders, aside from Hamlin, earned a one-way ticket to the Round of 8 by winning, leaving them to battle for the remaining seven vacant spots to the penultimate round in the Playoffs next weekend at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course (Roval).

Brad Keselowski was the highest-finishing Playoff contender on the track in second place while teammate Logano settled in third. Kurt Busch finished fourth while Christopher Bell completed the top five. Chris Buescher, Hamlin, Harvick, Erik Jones and Alfredo finished in the top 10.

Truex, Blaney and Elliott finished 12th, 15th and 18th while Kyle Busch ended up 27th, Following their misfortunes, teammates Byron, Larson and Bowman finished 36th, 37th and 38th.

There were 35 lead changes for 19 different leaders. The race featured five cautions for 27 laps. Only nine of the 40 starters did not finish on the lead lap.

Results:

1. Bubba Wallace, five laps led, Stage 2 winner

2. Brad Keselowski, 13 laps led

3. Joey Logano, nine laps led

4. Kurt Busch, nine laps led

5. Christopher Bell, 12 laps led

6. Chris Buescher, seven laps led, Stage 1 winner

7. Denny Hamlin, six laps led

8. Kevin Harvick, 16 laps led

9. Erik Jones

10. Anthony Alfredo, one lap led

11. Austin Dillon

12. Martin Truex Jr., two laps led

13. Cole Custer, seven laps led

14. Chase Briscoe

15. Ryan Blaney

16. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 10 laps led

17. Michael McDowell

18. Chase Elliott

19. Quin Houff

20. Justin Haley, four laps led

21. Ryan Newman

22. Corey LaJoie

23. Daniel Suarez

24. Landon Cassill

25. Joey Gase

26. Aric Almirola

27. Kyle Busch, four laps led

28. Cody Ware, four laps led

29. Garrett Smithley

30. BJ McLeod

31. Josh Bilicki

32. Ryan Preece – OUT, Accident

33. Ross Chastain, one lap down

34. James Davison, one lap down

35. Matt DiBenedetto – OUT, Accident, two laps led

36. William Byron – OUT, Accident

37. Kyle Larson, four laps down, three laps led

38. Alex Bowman – OUT, Accident, one lap led

39. Tyler Reddick – OUT, Accident, two laps led

40. Justin Allgaier – OUT, Accident

Bold indicates Playoff contenders.

Playoff standings.

1. Denny Hamlin – Advanced

2. Kyle Larson, +22

3. Joey Logano, +21

4. Brad Keselowski, +20

5. Martin Truex Jr., +20

6. Ryan Blaney, +15

7. Chase Elliott, +9

8. Kyle Busch, +9

9. Kevin Harvick, -9

10. Christopher Bell, -28

11. William Byron, -44

12. Alex Bowman, -52

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will continue at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course for the Bank of America Roval 400 on Sunday, October 10, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, which will mark the series’ seventh and final road course event of this season. It is also where the second round of eliminations in the Playoffs will occur.

October 4, 2021
Hamlin dominates for Playoff win at Vegas, advances to Round of 8

Denny Hamlin took another step closer in achieving his first NASCAR Cup Series championship after the veteran Joe Gibbs Racing competitor held off Chase Elliott to win the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 26.

The victory was enough for Hamlin and his No. 11 JGR Toyota team to earn a spot in the Playoff’s Round of 8.

The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Kyle Larson, winner of last weekend’s Playoff event at Bristol Motor Speedway, started on pole position and was joined on the front row with Ryan Blaney.

Prior to the event, Playoff contenders William Byron and Martin Truex Jr. started at the rear of the field after their respective machines failed pre-race inspection twice. Aric Almirola and JJ Yeley also dropped to the rear of the field for meeting the same fate as Byron and Truex. For Yeley’s case, however, his car failed pre-race inspection three times, resulting with his crew chief, Ty Brazeal, being ejected from the event and the driver penalized with a drive-through penalty at the start of the race.

When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Larson peaked ahead on the outside lane, but Blaney fought back on the inside lane through the first two turns. Through Turn 3, Blaney received a push from Kevin Harvick to clear Larson and lead the first lap in his No. 12 Menards Ford Mustang. In Turn 3, Harvick got loose and shuffled back to sixth while mired in a tight, three-wide battle. During this process, Denny Hamlin moved up to third followed by Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman and Kyle Busch as Joey Logano and Matt DiBenedetto joined the battle.

The following lap, Hamlin muscled his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry into the runner-up spot over Larson as Kyle Busch, DiBenedetto and Joey Logano battled for fourth through the backstretch and returning to the frontstretch.

Through the first five laps of the event, Blaney was leading by two-tenths of a second over Hamlin while Kyle Busch, Larson and Logano were in the top five. Alex Bowman, meanwhile, muscled his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE into sixth followed by DiBenedetto, Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott and Harvick. By then, Byron was in 21st behind Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace while Truex was in 24th behind Ryan Newman.

Three laps later, Hamlin emerged as the new leader over Blaney as Larson and Kyle Busch, both of whom battled for third, closed in on Blaney for more. Behind, Logano moved into the top five ahead of DiBenedetto, Harvick and Bowman.

By Lap 20, Hamlin continued to lead by nearly six-tenths of a second over Blaney. Kyle Busch was in third ahead of Larson while DiBenedetto was in fifth. Harvick, Logano, Erik Jones, William Byron and Keselowski were in the top 10 followed by Chase Elliott, Bowman, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and Austin Dillon. Kurt Busch, who was making his 750th career start, was in 16th ahead of rookie Chase Briscoe while Truex was in 19th ahead of Ryan Newman, Bubba Wallace, Michael McDowell and Ross Chastain.

When the competition caution flew on Lap 25, Hamlin stabilized his advantage to approximately six-tenths of a second over Blaney and more than a second over teammate Kyle Busch, who was making his 600th Cup career start. By then, Byron was up in ninth behind Erik Jones while Truex was mired in 18th behind Briscoe. In addition, teammates Elliott and Bowman were in 11th and 13th.

Under the competition caution, the leaders pitted and Kyle Busch emerged with the lead following his pit stops followed by teammate Hamlin, Blaney, Larson, Harvick and DiBenedetto. During the pit stops, Kurt Busch and Christopher Bell pitted again to have their respective machines repaired after both made contact with one another. In addition, Logano pitted again to have the lug nuts on his No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Mustang tightened.

When the race restarted on Lap 30, teammates Kyle Busch and Hamlin were locked in a heated, side-by-side battle in front of the field running in two lanes for a full lap. The following lap, Hamlin managed to squeak ahead of Kyle Busch as Larson and Blaney joined the battle. Behind, DiBenedetto battled Harvick for fifth. Another lap later, Kyle Busch retained second followed by Blaney as DiBenedetto shoved Larson through the frontstretch while battling Harvick.

By Lap 35, Byron battled teammate Elliott for seventh while DiBenedetto and Harvick battled for fifth. In addition, Blaney and Larson continued to battle for third while Kyle Busch kept teammate Hamlin within his sights for the lead.

Five laps later, the top-three competitors were separated by half a second as Hamlin continued to lead ahead of Kyle Busch and Larson. Meanwhile, the fourth-place competitor of Blaney was trailing by nearly a second while Harvick was in fifth. Byron was up in sixth while DiBenedetto fell back to seventh. Elliott, Tyler Reddick and Keselowski were in the top 10 followed by Bowman and Truex.

On Lap 44, Hamlin and Larson split the lapped car in Turn 3 while battling for the lead. Another lap later, Larson, who won at Vegas in March, made his way into the lead. Shortly after, Kyle Busch moved his No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry into the runner-up spot.

Through the first 50 laps of the event, Larson was out in front by eight-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch while Hamlin was in third, trailing by more than a second. Blaney and Harvick were in the top five followed by Byron, Elliott, Reddick, DiBenedetto and Keselowski. Truex and Bowman were in 11th and 12th, Logano was back in 20th behind Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell was mired back in 25th behind Aric Almirola and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

By Lap 60, Larson extended his advantage to more than a second over Kyle Busch. While Hamlin and Blaney remained in the top five, Byron made his first appearance in the top five after overtaking Harvick earlier. In addition, Elliott overtook his new rival, Harvick, in sixth while Truex was in 10th. Logano and Bell, meanwhile, were mired back in 19th and 23rd.

Fifteen laps later, Larson continued to lead by nearly two seconds over Kyle Busch while Hamlin, Blaney and Byron remained in the top five. Elliott, Reddick, Harvick, DiBenedetto and Truex stabilized themselves in the top 10 ahead of Keselowski, Bowman, Erik Jones, Briscoe, Austin Dillon, Logano, Kurt Busch, Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and McDowell.

When the first stage concluded on Lap 80, Larson captured his 15th stage victory of the season. Kyle Busch settled in second followed by Hamlin, Blaney, Byron, Elliott, Reddick, Harvick, DiBenedetto and Truex.

Under the stage break, the leaders returned to pit road and Hamlin emerged with the lead ahead of Larson, Elliott, Blaney, Byron and Reddick while Kyle Busch dropped back to seventh following a slow pit stop. During the pit stops, Aric Almirola was penalized for equipment interference. In addition, Bell, who pitted a lap earlier to have some damage repaired on his car, lost a lap to the leaders after he failed to beat the pace car off of pit road.

The second stage started on Lap 87. At the start, Hamlin received a push from Blaney on the inside lane to retain the lead while Larson remained in the hunt. In the midst of the battle at the front, the field fanned out to multiple lanes through the backstretch. Then during the following lap, Larson made a bold move on the outside lane to reassume the lead as Elliott motored his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE into third. In addition, Byron challenged Blaney for fourth while Reddick was in sixth ahead of Harvick and Kyle Busch.

On Lap 90 and with the field competing in close quarters towards the front, Byron bolted his No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE into the lead following a bold three-wide pass on Larson and Hamlin through the frontstretch and entering Turn 1. Larson then retained second followed by Blaney while Hamlin fell back to fourth in front of Elliott and Reddick.

Shortly after, the caution flew due to a heavy accident involving Joey Gase, where he lost a left-rear tire in Turn 1 and pounded the outside wall as he nearly flipped before coming to a rest below the Turn 2 apron and with significant rear-end damage. Despite climbing out under his own power, Gase was later transported to a local hospital for further evaluation.

Under caution, some led by Hamlin pitted while the rest led by teammates Byron and Larson remained on the track.

When the race restarted on Lap 98, Larson and Byron battled dead even for the top spot through the backstretch until Larson made his way to the front in Turn 3. Behind, teammates, Elliott and Byron battled for second while Bowman was up in fourth ahead of Blaney. Meanwhile, the field fanned out to multiple lanes as Kyle Busch was in ninth behind teammate Hamlin, Logano was in 11th ahead of Truex and Harvick got shuffled back to 16th.

At the Lap 100 mark, Larson continued to lead but was being pressured by teammate Elliott as teammate Byron and Blaney remained in pursuit. Two laps later, Elliott led a lap for himself by a nose, but Larson fought back on the outside lane and in a fierce, side-by-side battle. Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Hamlin and Kyle Busch were in sixth and seventh on fresh tires.

Soon after, the battle for the lead became a three-car battle as Byron joined the fight for the top spot along with teammates Larson and Elliott. By then, all four Hendrick Motorsports competitors were running first through fourth as Larson retained the lead. Not long after, Byron overtook teammate Elliott for second.

By Lap 110, Larson was leading by two-tenths of a second over teammate Byron while teammate Elliott settled in third, trailing by seven-tenths of a second. Behind, Blaney moved up to fourth followed by Hamlin and Kyle Busch while Bowman slipped back to seventh. DiBenedetto, Reddick and Kurt Busch were in the top 10 ahead of Logano, Harvick, Truex, Keselowski and Chris Buescher.

Ten laps later, Larson extended his advantage to more than a second over teammate Byron as Kyle Busch was up in third place. Teammate Hamlin was in fourth after overtaking Elliott while Blaney fell back to sixth ahead of Bowman, Reddick, DiBenedetto and Kurt Busch.

Another 10 laps later, Larson stabilized his advantage to more than two seconds over teammate Byron, who was told that he does not have enough fuel to complete the remainder of the second stage under green. Kyle Busch was in third followed by teammate Hamlin and Elliott while Blaney, Reddick, Bowman, DiBenedetto and Kurt Busch remained in the top 10.

Soon after, Elliott pitted under green along with teammate Byron, who ended up going with a two-tire pit stop after his crew members had issues changing the right-front tire on the No. 24 machine.

Back on the track and by Lap 140, Larson continued to lead by two seconds over Hamlin and by more than three seconds over Kyle Busch. While Elliott and Byron battled for 23rd, Blaney and Reddick were in the top five.

Through the first 150 laps of the event, Larson was leading by nearly a second over Hamlin and more than two seconds over Kyle Busch. By then, Erik Jones, who was told that he was five laps short in completing the second stage under green, had pitted.

Three laps later, Larson surrendered the lead to pit his No. 5 Tarlton and Son Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE under green. Also pitting were Blaney, Bowman and DiBenedetto while Hamlin took over the lead.

When the second stage concluded on Lap 160, Hamlin notched his 10th stage victory of the season. Kyle Busch settled in second followed by Reddick, Truex, Logano, Keselowski, Kurt Busch, Harvick, Austin Dillon and Bubba Wallace. By then, Elliott was able to race his way back on the lead lap on fresh tires in 17th while names like Byron, Larson, Blaney, DiBenedetto, Bell and Bowman were behind a lap. Byron, though, received the free pass as he was scored the first competitor a lap down.

Under the stage break, the leaders returned to pit road for service and Hamlin retained the lead followed by teammate Truex, Reddick, teammate Kyle Busch, Harvick and Logano.

With 101 laps remaining and the track falling into dark, night conditions, the final stage commenced. At the start, teammates Truex and Hamlin battled dead even through the backstretch until Truex cleared Hamlin entering Turn 3.

The following lap, however, Hamlin muscled his way back into the lead. Behind, a three-wide battle for third place occurred between Reddick, Kyle Busch and Harvick as Reddick prevailed entering the backstretch. Another lap later, Reddick moved up to second after passing Truex. Behind, Harvick battled Truex for third while Logano moved up to fifth ahead of Kyle Busch and Elliott.

With 90 laps remaining, Hamlin was leading by nearly three-tenths of a second over Reddick while Truex, Elliott and Kyle Busch were in the top five. Kurt Busch was in sixth ahead of Keselowski and Harvick while Logano and Briscoe were in the top 10. Meanwhile, Byron was in 12th in between Austin Dillon and Wallace while Larson was in 15th behind Blaney.

Down to the final 75 laps of the event, Hamlin continued to lead by nearly four-tenths of a second over Reddick while Truex, Elliott and Kyle Busch remained in the top five. By then, Byron was up in seventh, Harvick was in ninth, Logano was in 11th and Larson was mired back in 15th behind Daniel Suarez and Bubba Wallace.

Fifteen laps later, Hamlin extended his advantage to more than a second over Reddick. Truex and Elliott remained in the top five while Byron was back in the top five, moving into fifth ahead of the Busch brothers.

Not long after, green flag pit stops ignited as Kyle Busch pitted followed by Truex, Bowman, Almirola, Byron, Elliott, Blaney, Harvick, Harvick, Larson, Hamlin and others. During the pit stops, Bowman pitted for a second time due to a punctured wheel.

Down to the final 50 laps of the event and with the majority of the pit stops complete, Reddick, who has yet to pit, was leading followed by Keselowski, Austin Dillon and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. By then, Kurt Busch pitted.

Once Reddick pitted his No. 8 Caterpillar Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, Keselowski led for four laps before pitting and giving the lead to Austin Dillon.

With 43 laps remaining, Byron, who was in fifth, fell off the pace and was forced to pit under green due to a flat right-rear tire.

Three laps later, Austin Dillon, who has yet to pit, continued to lead followed by Hamlin, who trailed by more than 13 seconds. Elliott was in third while Truex and Kyle Busch were in the top five. Reddick was back in sixth ahead of Blaney, Harvick, Bell and Kurt Busch.

Another two laps later, Austin Dillon pitted and Hamlin returned to the lead, thus completing the cycle of green flag pit stops.

Down to the final 30 laps of the event, Hamlin was leading by less than a second over Elliott while Truex, Kyle Busch and Reddick remained in the top five. Meanwhile, Harvick was in seventh behind Blaney, Logano was in 10th behind teammate Keselowski and Kurt Busch and Larson was in 11th. Behind, there were three Playoff contenders mired a lap behind: Byron in 21st, Bowman in 23rd and Bell, who was two laps down, in 25th.

With 20 laps remaining, Hamlin continued to lead by nearly two seconds over Elliott while third-place Kyle Busch trailed by nearly nine seconds. Truex remained in fourth while Reddick was under pressure by Blaney for fifth. By then, Larson cracked the top 10.

Down to the final 10 laps of the event, Hamlin stabilized his advantage to more than a second over Elliott.

With five laps remaining, Elliott cut the deficit down to Hamlin to nine-tenths of a second, but Hamlin, despite navigating his way through lapped traffic, remained in the lead.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Hamlin was leading by three-tenths of a second over Elliott, who closed the gap and was closing hard for the win. Despite being pressured by Elliott for a final lap, Hamlin was able to smoothly navigate his way around the circuit and claim the checkered flag along with the victory by four-tenths of a second over Elliott.

With his second victory of the season and first at Vegas, Hamlin also achieved his 46th NASCAR Cup Series career win, which moved him into a tie with the late NASCAR Hall of Famer Buck Baker for 17th place on the all-time wins list. In addition, Hamlin is the lone competitor to be guaranteed a spot in the Round of 8 in the 2021 Cup Playoffs.

“Just so happy for our FedEx Office team,” Hamlin said on NBCSN. “Joe Gibbs Racing just gives us great race cars. That’s what I’m so proud of is to drive for those guys. Can’t thank them enough for everything they do. Vegas, it feels so good to win in Vegas. Last couple times, I’ve been so close and just didn’t have the right breaks, but [the crew] dialed the car in great. Great to hold those guys off. I’m so happy to not have to worry about the next two weeks, but I’m a professional, so I’m gonna work just as hard each and every week to win.”

Elliott, who led a single lap, finished in second place for the sixth time this season while Kyle Busch ended up in third place in his 600th Cup career start at his home track. Both Cup champions are above the top-eight cutline.

“Yeah, we were really close,” Elliott said. “Just not quite close enough. Denny did a good job controlling the gap to me. He was having a hard time with [DiBenedetto]. I think he was doing a good job of giving himself enough room to be able to work the lanes and control the gap back to me. Super close. Really proud of our NAPA team. I feel like we’ve been performing at a really nice level the last three or four weeks. We just haven’t had great results to show for it. Proud of the effort tonight. I’m look forward to the next two [races]. It’s gonna be wild, so looking forward to it.”

“We got all we could,” Busch added. “I felt like during the daytime, we were a little bit better than [Hamlin]. We could race with him. I was looking forward to the lights coming on and us picking up speed and being able to rip the wall a little bit faster. When we got hit into the fence there off of [Turn] 2, the first time, it knocked speed out of our car. We helped it a little bit, coming to pit road, putting the last set of tires on it and I got it into the fence again, was trying to get by a lapped car. Not enough room over there, I guess, but overall, great job by [crew chief] Ben [Beshore] and my guys on this M&M’s Camry. They gave me a good piece. We moved forward all day long, so that was good. Good showing.”

Truex finished fourth while Blaney fended off Reddick to finish fifth on the track. Both Truex and Blaney are also above the top-eight cutline following Vegas.

“We just never could quite get the balance right,” Truex said. “Really struggled off of Turn 4 all day long, no matter what we did. Not sure exactly why. It’s not really something we’ve had here in the past, but definitely something going on there. We couldn’t fix it. We tried a lot. We made a lot of adjustments. [Crew chief] James [Small] and the guys did a really good job executing. We got all we could out of it. The Bass Pro Toyota was just a little bit off tonight. Wish we could’ve been better, but all in all, to grind out a fourth with that car was a good effort…Nothing bad happened to us. Everybody did a good job. Cross our fingers and cross our toes, do some praying this week and go to Talladega. See what happens.”

Reddick was the highest non-Playoff contender in sixth while Keselowski, Kurt Busch, Harvick and Larson finished in the top 10. Logano settled in 11th while Byron, Bowman and Bell finished 18th, 22nd and 24th, respectively.

“We just kind of grind all day,” Keselowski said. “No point were we the fastest car, but we executed really, really well. The pit crew did an awesome job. We’re not beating ourselves, whether it’s the things falling off the car or making big mistakes to get in trouble. I’m proud of that. This is a really dangerous team with the execution we have right now. If we can just find a little bit of speed, we can win races and win a championship. We don’t have that today, but we’re still soldering through, scoring a lot of points and putting ourselves in a good position.”

“The balance never really changed on our Subway Ford Mustang,” Harvick said. “Just kept plugging away at it and way better than we were last time. Made up some points and go to the next one. [Talladega]’ll be the same as this week. Just go try to score stage points, try to put yourself in the best position possible and go from there. I’ve done it all year. It’s an old story, right?”

“We didn’t make the right decision in the second stage,” Larson said. “We stayed out, got caught where we didn’t have enough fuel and had to pit, went a lap down because of it. Had to do the wave around, was on older tires…just hard battling through there. Just a battle. Had to keep my head on straight there, but we were able to dig through it and come away with a top 10. It surely should’ve been a lot better, but we were to still salvage an OK day. Get a stage win, get another Playoff point. That was good…It is what it is. We’ll go on to Talladega now and try to miss some chaos.”

“Nothing really went as planned,” Logano said. “We were definitely better in the daytime when the track was hot. It was probably our best run. Unfortunately, that was when we had a loose wheel and had to pit before the green flag after the [competition] caution. That kind of took away some stage points there. Got some stage points in the second round and there in the end, lot the handle a little bit as the track went cool. Lost some speed on top of that and had another vibration. Pretty much, nothing went good at the end of the race. Maybe, we should be happy with an 11th after all of that and we’re fighting through it, but definitely want to be a little bit more comfortable with the Pennzoil Mustang going into Talladega. All in all, we got what we could out of it for today. Left some still on the table, though. That’s probably the most frustrating part.”

“I thought we were really fast,” Byron said. “We came from the back to the front, took the lead and then obviously, had that caution. I chose the wrong lane there and had to run second there for awhile to Kyle. And then we had the strategy deal with not being able to make it on fuel and had to recover from that. We had to take two tires and that hurt us. We were able to drive all the way back to the front from the back again, so that was twice today. And then we had the flat tire. We had an awesome car. The No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet was amazing. I think it was right there with [Hamlin]. [I] Never got to really race him straight up. We’ll just have to keep bringing that speed.”

There were 21 lead changes for 10 different leaders. The race featured four cautions for 21 laps. Only 12 of 38 competitors finished on the lead lap

Results.

1. Denny Hamlin, 137 laps led, Stage 2 winner

2. Chase Elliott, one lap led

3. Kyle Busch, two laps led

4. Martin Truex Jr., one lap led

5. Ryan Blaney, eight laps led

6. Tyler Reddick, five laps led

7. Brad Keselowski, four laps led

8. Kurt Busch

9. Kevin Harvick

10. Kyle Larson, 95 laps led, Stage 1 winner

11. Joey Logano

12. Matt DiBenedetto

13. Austin Dillon, one lap down, seven laps led

14. Chase Briscoe, one lap down

15. Daniel Suarez, one lap down

16. Bubba Wallace, one lap down

17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., one lap down

18. William Byron, one lap down, seven laps led

19. Aric Almirola, one lap down

20. Ryan Newman, one lap down

21. Michael McDowell, one lap down

22. Alex Bowman, two laps down

23. Ross Chastain, two laps down

24. Christopher Bell, two laps down

25. Chris Buescher, two laps down

26. Erik Jones, two laps down

27. Anthony Alfredo, two laps down

28. Ryan Preece, two laps down

29. Cole Custer, two laps down

30. Corey LaJoie, three laps down

31. Cody Ware, seven laps down

32. Justin Haley, seven laps down

33. BJ McLeod, 10 laps down

34. Quin Houff, 12 laps down

35. Garrett Smithley, 13 laps down

36. Josh Bilicki, 15 laps down

37. Joey Gase – OUT, Accident

38. JJ Yeley – OUT

Bold indicates Playoff contenders.

Playoff standings.

1. Denny Hamlin – Advanced

2. Kyle Larson, +57

3. Kyle Busch, +35

4. Martin Truex Jr., +31

5. Ryan Blaney, +24

6. Chase Elliott, +22

7. Joey Logano, +6

8. Brad Keselowski, +4

9. William Byron, -4

10. Kevin Harvick, -7

11. Alex Bowman, -13

12. Christopher Bell, -25

Next on the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs schedule is Talladega Superspeedway for the second Round of 12 event. The race is scheduled to occur on Sunday, October 3, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.

September 26, 2021
Larson captures the Bristol Night Race; Playoff’s Round of 12 is set

With an abundance of late battles, drama and tempers flaring around every corner, Kyle Larson took advantage of a late dust-up between teammate Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick to overtake Harvick with three laps remaining and drive away to win the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday, September 18.

Larson, who had clinched his spot to the Round of 12 in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs coming into the event, claimed his sixth victory of the season as he is one of 12 competitors who will continue to pursue the 2021 Cup title in the following Playoff round.

The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Martin Truex Jr., winner of last weekend’s Playoff event at Richmond Raceway, started on pole position and was joined on the front row with teammate Denny Hamlin.

When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Truex flew away with the lead on the outside lane and proceeded to lead the first lap. Behind, Chase Elliott moved into second while Joey Logano battled Hamlin for third.

Through the first five laps of the event, Truex was out in front by a tenth of a second over Elliott while Hamlin, Logano and Christopher Bell were in the top five. Behind, Kyle Busch retained 10th ahead of Alex Bowman, Aric Almirola and William Byron.

A lap later, Elliott muscled his No. 9 Hooters Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE to the lead over Truex’s No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry.

By Lap 10, Elliott stretched ahead with the lead by half a second over Truex while Hamlin, Logano and Kyle Larson were in the top five. Brad Keselowski was in sixth followed by Kevin Harvick, Bell, Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney. By then, all 16 Playoff competitors were in the top 20, with Kurt Busch mired in mid-pack.

Ten laps later, Elliott continued to lead by six-tenths of a second over runner-up Hamlin and by two seconds over third-place Logano. Larson and Keselowski were in fourth and fifth followed by Harvick while Truex fell back to seventh. Blaney, Kyle Busch and Bell were in the top 10 while Alex Bowman, teammate William Byron, Aric Almirola and Michael McDowell were in the top 15. Tyler Reddick and Kurt Busch were in 17th and 22nd.

Another 10 laps later, Elliott stabilized his advantage to four-tenths of a second over Hamlin while Larson trailed by nearly two seconds in third. Meanwhile, Logano fell back to sixth behind Harvick and Truex continued to fall back in 10th in between teammate Bell and Bowman.

When the competition caution flew on Lap 40, Elliott remained in the lead over Hamlin and Larson.

Under the competition caution, the leaders pitted and Elliott retained the lead ahead of Hamlin, Larson, Keselowski, Harvick and Truex.

When the race restarted on Lap 48, Elliott retained the lead following a strong start on the outside lane while teammate Larson also retained the runner-up spot ahead of Hamlin, Keselowski and Harvick. Meanwhile, Kyle Busch muscled his way to sixth followed by Ryan Blaney and the field.

Through the first 60 laps of the event, Elliott was leading by nearly half a second over Hamlin, who managed to overtake Larson earlier for the runner-up spot. Keselowski and Harvick were in the top five followed by Blaney, Byron, Kyle Busch, Truex and Bowman while Bell, Reddick, Aric Almirola, McDowell, Kurt Busch and Logano were in 12th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 21st and 23rd. Meanwhile, Austin Dillon was the highest non-title contender in 11th while Erik Jones was in 14th and rookie Chase Briscoe was in 16th. In addition, Ross Chastain, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Matt DiBenedetto were in the top 20 while Ryan Newman was in 22nd.

Fifteen laps later, Elliott continued to lead by two-tenths of a second over teammate Larson, who overtook Hamlin earlier and was slowly pursuing his Hendrick Motorsports’ teammate for the top spot.

Another nine laps later, Larson used the lapped car of David Starr to overtake teammate Elliott and take the lead. Shortly after, Hamlin moved his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry into the runner-up spot. Behind, Keselowski retained fourth ahead of Harvick, Blaney, Byron, Kyle Busch, Truex and Austin Dillon.

On Lap 91, Hamlin emerged as the fourth different leader of the event after overtaking Larson.

At the Lap 100 mark, Hamlin was leading by three-tenths of a second over Larson while Elliott, Keselowski and Blaney were in the top five. Harvick was in sixth followed by Byron, Kyle Busch, Truex and Bell while Bowman, Almirola, Reddick, McDowell, Kurt Busch and Logano were in 12th, 13th, 14th, 18th, 21st and 22nd.

Five laps later, Hamlin, the leader, nearly got turned by Cole Custer while trying to lap him, rookie Anthony Alfredo and a bevy of competitors. Despite the contact, Hamlin continued to lead by a decent margin over Larson and Elliott.

By Lap 120, the battle for the lead ignited between Hamlin and Larson, both of whom were trapped behind Logano and Bubba Wallace as both were trying to remain on the lead lap. Two laps later, Larson took the lead. Another lap later, however, Hamlin returned the favor and overtook Larson while also lapping Wallace.

Following his late battle with Larson amid lapped traffic, Hamlin was able to retain the top spot and claim the first stage victory on Lap 125, thus claiming his ninth stage victory of the season. Larson ended up in second followed by Elliott, Keselowski, Blaney, Harvick, Kyle Busch, Bell, Truex and Byron. By then, 22 competitors were scored on the lead lap as Kurt Busch and Logano were spared from being lapped while Wallace received the free pass. On the other hand, names like Ryan Newman, Cole Custer, Daniel Suarez, Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece and Corey LaJoie were lapped.

Under the stage break, the leaders made the turn to pit road and Larson emerged as the leader followed by Elliott, Keselowski, Hamlin, Harvick and Blaney. Following the pit stops, however, Elliott was penalized for speeding on pit road.

The second stage started on Lap 135 and Larson rocketed away with a strong start followed by Keselowski while Hamlin spun the tires on the inside lane, though he settled in third ahead of Harvick, Bell, Blaney and Kyle Busch.

On Lap 138, the No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang piloted by Brad Keselowski moved into the lead beneath Larson’s No. 5 Valvoline Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. At the same time, Hamlin overtook Larson for second while Harvick and Blaney kept Larson in their sights.

Seven laps later, Hamlin reassumed the lead while Larson challenged Keselowski for the runner-up spot. Behind, Blaney moved his No. 12 Menards Ford Mustang up to fourth and closed in on the three leaders while Harvick, sporting the Subway Restaurants colors on his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang, was in fifth ahead of Kyle Busch.

By Lap 150, Hamlin extended his advantage to a second over Larson while Keselowski, Blaney and Harvick were in the top five. Kyle Busch, Bell, Byron, Almirola and Reddick were in the top 10 while Larson was mired in 21st behind Kurt Busch. Logano, meanwhile, was in 18th.

On Lap 167, the caution flew when Newman made contact with Cole Custer in the outside wall in Turn 4 and proceeded to smack the outside wall in Turn 2, collecting Custer again. Behind, Suarez was hit by Wallace while he checked up to avoid the incident while Chris Buescher barely avoided the carnage.

Under caution, the leaders returned to pit road and Larson returned to the lead followed by Hamlin, Keselowski, Harvick, Blaney and Kyle Busch. During the pit stops, Almirola, who had reported smoke earlier, returned to his pit stall after being told that fluid was discovered inside the left-front tire. His pit crew then popped the hood up and diagnosed the issue before sending him back on the track in 28th place, the final car on the lead lap. Shortly after, Almirola pitted again for mechanical repairs as fuel from his car was reported on the track.

On Lap 181, the race restarted under green. At the start, Larson retained the lead on the outside lane while Hamlin moved up to second and Harvick battled Keselowski for third. Behind, Blaney and Kyle Busch battled for fifth ahead of Reddick and Bell.

By Lap 190, Larson was leading by half a second over Hamlin while Blaney, Harvick and Keselowski were in the top five. Kyle Busch retained sixth ahead of Reddick, Bell, Logano and Elliott. Meanwhile, Byron was in 11th, Truex was in 15th, McDowell and Kurt Busch were in 17th and 18th behind Bowman and Almirola, following his fluid and mechanical issue, was in 24th, still on the lead lap but now below the top-12 cutline to the Playoffs.

Through the first 200 laps of the event, Larson continued to lead by eight-tenths of a second over Hamlin while Blaney, Harvick and Keselowski remained in the top five. By then, Elliott was up in eighth in between Bell and Byron while Logano battled Erik Jones for 11th.

On Lap 220, the caution flew when rookie Anthony Alfredo got sideways in Turn 3 with help from Corey LaJoie and made contact with the outside wall in Turn 4, where his No. 38 Dude Wipes Ford Mustang was hit by an oncoming BJ McLeod and Justin Haley. The incident was enough for NASCAR to red-flag the event.

When the red flag was lifted, some led by Blaney pitted while the rest led by Larson remained on the track.

On Lap 232, the race restarted under green. At the start, Larson fended off Keselowski to remain as the leader while Hamlin battled Keselowski for the runner-up spot. Behind, Elliott was in fourth ahead of Kyle Busch and Bubba Wallace while Byron battled Harvick for seventh.

A few laps later, Byron, a competitor trying to remain in the Playoffs, engaged in a battle with Kyle Busch for sixth place while Wallace and Elliott moved up to fourth and fifth.

With less than 10 laps remaining in the second stage, Larson continued to lead by a narrow margin over Hamlin and Keselowski while teammates Elliott and Byron were scored in the top five ahead of Harvick, Wallace and the field. Soon after, Alfredo scrapped the outside wall, but managed to pit without drawing a caution.

When the second stage concluded on Lap 250, the halfway mark, Larson captured his 14th stage victory of the season. Hamlin and Keselowski settled in second and third followed by Byron, who managed to overtake teammate Elliott. Harvick settled in sixth ahead of Blaney, Bell, Reddick and Kyle Busch. By then, Logano, Blaney and Harvick secured their spots for the Round of 12 in the Playoffs.

Under the stage break, some led by Larson pitted while the rest led by Harvick and Blaney remained on the track. During the pit stops, Reddick, a Playoff competitor, pitted a second time to have a lug nut on the right rear of his car tightened.

With 241 laps remaining, the final stage commenced. At the start, Harvick took off with the lead on the outside lane followed by Blaney, who battled Bell as Truex joined the battle. Behind, the field fanned out to three lanes as Hamlin and Larson, both racing on fresh tires, bolted their way back to the front.

Six laps later, Blaney emerged as the new leader of the event. Behind, Hamlin was battling Almirola for fifth while Larson was in eighth behind Logano. Elliott was in 10th ahead of Chase Briscoe while Byron was in 12th ahead of Wallace and Keselowski.

With 220 laps remaining, Blaney was leading by half a second over Harvick while Bell, Hamlin and Larson were in the top five. Almirola was riding strong in sixth followed by Logano, Elliott, Byron and Truex while Bowman was in 11th ahead of Kyle Busch, and Keselowski. Meanwhile, Kurt Busch was mired in 22nd, McDowell was in 25th and Reddick was back in 26th.

Down to the final 200 laps of the event and while the leaders were mired behind lapped traffic, Blaney retained the lead over Harvick by a narrow margin. Bell was in third followed by Hamlin and Larson while Almirola, Logano, Elliott, Byron and Bowman were in the top 10. By then, McDowell, who was in 26th, was trying to remain on the lead lap.

Eight laps later, Harvick made his way into the lead over Blaney. By then, Bell, Larson and Hamlin were slowly catching the two leaders. Meanwhile, Elliott and Byron remained in seventh and eighth behind Almirola while Logano battled with Bowman, Kyle Busch and Keselowski for ninth place. By then, McDowell was lapped.

With 175 laps remaining, Harvick continued to lead by eight-tenths of a second over Larson while Blaney, Bell and Hamlin were in the top five ahead of Elliott, Byron, Bowman, Almirola and Kyle Busch.

Twelve laps later, Larson returned to the lead after overtaking Harvick. He then went to work to lap Playoff contender Kurt Busch, though Busch refused to give in. As Busch remained on the lead lap, Harvick closed back in on Larson’s rear bumper while Hamlin attempted to catch the two leaders.

Another eight laps later, Larson succeeded in lapping Kurt Busch as he went to work to lap Tyler Reddick, another Playoff contender.

With 150 laps remaining, Larson’s advantage was nearly a second over Harvick while Hamlin, Blaney and Bell were in the top five. By then, Larson lapped Austin Dillon as Dillon’s teammate, Reddick, was next on his radar.

Thirteen laps remaining, the caution returned for Quin Houff, who spun and wrecked in Turn 4 after cutting a left-rear tire. By then, Playoff contenders McDowell, Kurt Busch and Reddick were lapped while Larson was still leading ahead of Harvick.

Under caution, the leaders pitted and Larson retained the lead ahead of Hamlin, Harvick, Kyle Busch, Blaney and Elliott.

With 130 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Larson powered away with another strong start on the outside lane while Hamlin overtook Harvick for second. With the field shuffling and fanning out to three lanes behind, Kyle Busch battled Blaney for fourth ahead of Elliott, Byron was in eighth behind Bowman and Almirola was shuffled out of the top 10. By then, Bubba Wallace and Matt DiBenedetto, two non-Playoff contenders, were in ninth and 10th ahead of Truex.

Fifteen laps later, Larson was leading by three-tenths of a second over Hamlin while Harvick, Elliott and Blaney were in the top five. Teammates Bowman and Byron battled for seventh behind Kyle Busch while Wallace and DiBenedetto were in the top 10.

A few laps later, the caution returned for another incident involving Quin Houff, who cut the left-front tire this time. The incident was enough to terminate the remainder of his night race.

Under caution, some led by Blaney pitted while the rest led by Larson remained on the track.

With 104 laps remaining, the race restarted. At the start, Larson retained the lead entering the first turn while Hamlin issued a challenge on Harvick for the runner-up spot.

Then, with 101 laps remaining, Hamlin, who challenged Larson for the lead, made contact with Larson in Turn 4, which resulted with Hamlin going dead straight into the outside wall in Turn 1 with a flat right-front tire and drew the caution.

Down to the final 93 laps of the event, the race restarted. At the start, Larson cleared teammate Elliott with a push from Harvick to retain the lead. While teammates Larson and Elliott battled for the lead, Kyle Busch used the high lane to move up to fourth in between Harvick and Bowman. Meanwhile, Erik Jones was up in eighth behind Truex and Byron while DiBenedetto and Wallace continued to run in the top 10.

Six laps later, Elliott returned to the lead after overtaking teammate Larson on the inside lane.

With 75 laps remaining, Elliott was leading by four-tenths of a second over teammate Larson while Harvick, Kyle Busch and Byron were in the top five. By then, Byron was scored a single point outside of the top-12 cutline behind Almirola, who was in 17th in between Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick, who also remained in the hunt for a transfer spot.

Under the final 60 laps of the event, the battle for the lead intensified as Harvick challenged Elliott for the top spot. By then, Byron overtook Kyle Busch for fourth and was scored a single point inside the top-12 cutline over Almirola, who was back in 18th.

Down to the final 50 laps of the event, Elliott was still leading by two-tenths of a second over Harvick while Larson trailed by nearly six-tenths of a second. Byron, currently scored inside the top-12 cutline, was in fourth in front of Blaney, Kyle Busch, Bowman, Bell, Keselowski and Erik Jones. Truex and Logano were in 11th and 12th while Reddick was in 16th, Hamlin was in 18th ahead of Almirola and Kurt Busch was in 22nd.

Nearing the final 40 laps of the event, Kyle Busch pitted under green after suffering a flat tire. By the time he returned to the track, he was two laps behind and was placed on the verge of missing the top-12 cutline.

With 35 laps remaining, Harvick used several lapped cars, including Kyle Busch, to take the lead following several attempts to intimidate Elliott. Shortly after, Elliott, who was hit by Harvick after Harvick got loose, cut a left-front tire and pitted under green.

Not long after, Bell, who was having a strong run in the making, pitted under green after cutting a tire and damaging the right-front side of his car. The incident also placed Bell in jeopardy of not advancing in the Playoffs.

Back on track, Harvick continued to lead by a narrow margin over Larson, who continued to close in for the top spot. Meanwhile, Byron was up in third followed by Blaney and Bowman. Reddick was in 13th, Almirola was in 17th behind Wallace and Ross Chastain, Kurt Busch was in 19th and Kyle Busch was in 21st.

Down to the final 10 laps of the event, Harvick remained as the leader by nearly a second over Larson while teammate Byron was in third.

Then in the closing laps, Larson started to close back in on Harvick, who was being mired and slowed behind the lapped car of Elliott. Earlier, Elliott, who had returned to the track, ran into the side of Harvick to express his displeasure for the contact that cut Elliott’s tire and knocked him out of contention for the win. Now, Harvick, who had an advantage of more than a second over Larson near the final 10 laps, was losing ground behind Elliott as Larson closed in.

After trying to establish a run on Harvick during the previous laps, Larson seized an opportunity through the backstretch with four laps remaining as he went below Harvick and pulled off a daring, sliding move in front of Harvick entering Turn 4 to take the lead. Harvick then tried to crossover, which nearly turned Larson, but Larson withstood his ground and assumed command of the race with three laps remaining.

With Larson out in front, Byron joined the battle as he went to work on Harvick for second.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Larson was out in front by four-tenths of a second over Harvick and Byron. By then, Elliott yielded to teammate Larson. With time running out for Harvick, who was again held up by Elliott, Larson thundered his way to the victory at Bristol for the first time in his career.

With his sixth checkered flag of the season, first at Bristol and his 12th NASCAR Cup Series career win, Larson took another step closer in contending for his first Cup championship. In addition, he achieved the 275th NASCAR Cup win for Hendrick Motorsports.

“That was an awesome race!” Larson said on the frontstretch on NBCSN. “It was so cool to be able to race there for the win. Obviously, Harvick and Chase got together and Chase was upset and kind of held him up. It got Harvick having to move around and use his tires up off the bottom. I started to get some dives-in working off of [Turns] 1 and 2 and just got a big run, decided to pull the trigger, slide him and squeeze him a little bit. Then he had me jacked up through the frontstretch. It was wild. Had my hands full. Thanks to Valvoline and everybody who helps on this Hendrick Motorsports car. So cool. I love this place. This is, by far, my favorite track and this is why. You guys [fans] are amazing, loud. We feel the energy while we’re out there racing…I look forward to the rest of the year.”

While Larson celebrated on the frontstretch, tempers flared on pit road as Harvick and Elliott, both of whom pulled up together on pit road, climbed out of their cars and engaged in a heated face-to-face conversation. With NASCAR officials and crew members surrounding both competitors, the conversation turned heated as both competitors had to be separated by the officials and crew members, with Harvick tossing his glove towards Elliott and slamming his helmet on top of his own car.

Photo by Christian Gardner for SpeedwayMedia.com.

“I told [Elliott] it was kind of a chicken [expletive] move that he did there at the end,” Harvick, who received a chorus of boos from the crowd, said. “We’re racing for the frickin win at Bristol. We’re three wide in the middle and he throws a temper tantrum, like I was just trying to get the lead and race him hard. Then he pulls up in front of me and just sits there until I lose the whole lead, so I just hate it for our Subway Ford Mustang team to be able to lose a race like that. I watched him let [Byron] go by and then anytime you run into him, it’s a problem. [The fans] can boo all they want. I don’t care…I’m ready to rip somebody’s freaking head off.”

“Well, it’s something [Harvick] does all the time,” Elliott said. “He runs into your left side constantly at other tracks. Sometimes it does cut down your left side, other times it doesn’t. Did it to me in Darlington a few weeks ago because he was tired of racing me. Whether he did it on purpose doesn’t matter. At some point, you have to draw a line. I don’t care who he is or how long he’s been doing it. I’m going to stand up for myself and my team and we’re going down the road…I’m happy for Team Hendrick. Wish I could have got our Hooters Chevrolet in Victory Lane. But we’ll try again next week.”

The heated conversation between both competitors continued as Harvick and Elliott went inside Elliott’s hauler to further review and discuss the incident in private.

Meanwhile, Byron’s third-place result was enough for him to clinch the 12th and final transfer spot to the Round of 12 by two points over both Tyler Reddick and Aric Almirola, both of whom were eliminated from the Playoffs.

“Honestly, I don’t think I breathed for 100 laps,” Byron said. “It was, honestly, just trying to go as hard as you could. I had the best seat in the house for the leaders getting together. I was just trying to make as much speed as I could and felt like that was what our car had. We’re just trying to hold off [Blaney]. Just driving it as hard as you can. That’s a pretty awesome moment that we could pull through, being 18 points out coming into this race and finish third and advance is pretty amazing…I feel like we just had to get through this round. We had a really unfortunate start to it and made up for it tonight. Thanks to AXALTA, Chevrolet, Mr. Hendrick, everybody back at the shop. It’s pretty awesome.”

“Frustrating,” Almirola said. “Disappointed to have [our Playoff run] end like that just because we battled so much adversity throughout the night and got ourselves in position to where we’re running top 10 and doing what we needed to do. That caution came out there at the end where we had 18 laps on our tires. We stayed out and for whatever reason, when we re-fired on those tires, the car was on top of the race track, scathing, wouldn’t turn, didn’t have any side bite and just struggling. I don’t know. That’s not the way we wanted it to end, but we’ll keep going and battle it out the rest of the Playoffs and see if we can finish inside the top 10 in points.”

“Unfortunately, we certainly gave up more than two spots over the course this first round,” Reddick added. “Darlington or getting stuck down a lap at Richmond. Not just one key opportunity, but there was a number that was the difference. One situation, the situation tonight doesn’t really stick out as the one that makes it sting. It was just unfortunate that, getting in the Playoffs, we don’t have the pace that we had to just point our way into the Playoff leaderboard. To miss it by two [points]…Had the races that we did, it kind of adds up and for us to miss it by two and run the way we did, it isn’t a surprise. It stings, but we still get to go race the last six, seven races that we have on the schedule. Good tracks for us…Everything else on the race track will be the same, so we’ll go make the most out of those races.”

Despite their late on-track incidents, teammates Kyle Busch and Christopher Bell, both of whom finished 21st and 29th, managed to transfer to the Round of 12 in the Playoffs along with Alex Bowman, who achieved a strong fifth-place result.

“That was disappointing,” Bell said. “Overall, we still accomplished what we wanted to accomplish today. We were on our way to a nice finish and then, the flat tire really cost a lot of panic. Thankfully, we did our job. Got some stage points, performed well at Richmond last week, gave us a little bit of a buffer, and moving on…Take some momentum and move on to Vegas.”

“We just weren’t very good at being able to make up time on the leaders there,” Busch said. “[I] Was only going to be about fifth quick. We fought hard there all day long and had a flat there at the end and got way behind. I guess we made it [into the Round of 12], so that’s all that matters.”

“It was an interesting night, for sure,” Bowman said. “We were pretty awful to start the race and [crew chief] Greg [Ives] threw everything, including his laptop at it. I just started really at the race track and took a lot of adjusting on [the car] to get where we needed it. Obviously, it was really fast there at the end. Just proud of everybody on this No. 48 team for not giving up. My mistake at Darlington kind of put us in this box. Us and [Byron]. Really glad that [Byron] made it because I feel like, if they wouldn’t have, that would’ve been on me too. Just appreciative to make it through to this next round. Good track’s coming up for us this round. Just got to go do my job, not make any more mistakes and have a good rest of the Playoffs.”

Blaney finished fourth on the track while Keselowski, Truex, Erik Jones, Hamlin and Matt DiBenedetto completed the top-10 results.

There were 23 lead changes for seven different leaders. The race featured eight cautions for 71 laps.

Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Blaney, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch and William Byron have transferred to the Round of 12 in the Playoffs. Tyler Reddick, Aric Almirola, Kurt Busch and Michael McDowell have been eliminated from title contention.

Results.

1. Kyle Larson, 175 laps led, Stage 2 winner

2. Kevin Harvick, 71 laps led

3. William Byron

4. Ryan Blaney, 45 laps led

5. Alex Bowman

6. Brad Keselowski, 10 laps led

7. Martin Truex Jr., five laps led

8. Erik Jones

9. Denny Hamlin, 65 laps led, Stage 1 winner

10. Matt DiBenedetto

11. Joey Logano

12. Tyler Reddick

13. Chase Briscoe

14. Ross Chastain

15. Austin Dillon

16. Bubba Wallace

17. Ryan Preece

18. Aric Almirola

19. Kurt Busch

20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., one lap down

21. Kyle Busch, one lap down

22. Daniel Suarez, two laps down

23. Chris Buescher, two laps down

24. Michael McDowell, two laps down

25. Chase Elliott, three laps down, 129 laps led

26. Corey LaJoie, three laps down

27. JJ Yeley, five laps down

28. Cole Custer, six laps down

29. Christopher Bell, seven laps down

30. Garrett Smithley, 13 laps down

31. Josh Bilicki, 18 laps down

32. David Starr, 18 laps down

33. James Davison, 26 laps down

34. Quin Houff – OUT, Accident

35. Anthony Alfredo – OUT, Accident

36. Justin Haley – OUT, Accident

37. BJ McLeod – OUT, Accident

38. Ryan Newman – OUT, Dvp

Bold indicates Playoff contenders.

Playoff standings.

1. Kyle Larson – Advanced

2. Denny Hamlin – Advanced

3. Martin Truex Jr. – Advanced

4. Ryan Blaney – Advanced

5. Kevin Harvick – Advanced

6. Joey Logano – Advanced

7. Chase Elliott – Advanced

8. Brad Keselowski – Advanced

9. Alex Bowman – Advanced

10. Christopher Bell – Advanced

11. Kyle Busch – Advanced

12. William Byron – Advanced

13. Tyler Reddick – Eliminated

14. Aric Almirola – Eliminated

15. Kurt Busch – Eliminated

16. Michael McDowell – Eliminated

The Round of 12 in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will commence next weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the South Point 400. The event will occur on Sunday, September 26, at 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

September 19, 2021
Martin Truex Jr. rallies to win at Richmond, advances in Cup Series Playoffs

From an opening lap penalty to Victory Lane, Martin Truex Jr. punched his ticket into the Round of 12 in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs after the former Cup champion led the final 51 laps and beat teammate Denny Hamlin by more than a second to win the Federated Auto Parts 400 Salute to First Responders at Richmond Raceway on Saturday, September 11.

The victory came as Truex, who lined up on the front row, started the race by serving a pass-through penalty on pit road after jumping the initial start of the race over teammate Hamlin. Despite the penalty, Truex remained on the lead lap and methodically worked his way towards the front before leading three times for a total of 80 of 400 laps and running away from his teammates and fellow Playoff contenders as he took another step forward in pursuing his second championship.

The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. Kyle Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series regular-season champion, was scheduled to start on pole position. However, his car failed pre-race inspection twice and as a result, he was sent to the rear of the field. With that, Denny Hamlin, winner of last weekend’s Cup Playoff opener at Darlington Raceway, started on pole position and was joined on the front row with teammate Martin Truex Jr.

Along with Larson, Cole Custer started at the rear of the field due to his car failing pre-race inspection twice. Garrett Smithley also dropped to the rear of the field due to a driver change.

During the pace laps, the crew members and fans raised their American flags and passed for a moment of silence to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks while honoring the first responders affected by the event.

When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Truex jumped ahead of teammate Hamlin at the start/finish line and took off with an early lead. Not long after, Truex was penalized with a restart violation for crossing the start/finish line and starting the race ahead of the pole-sitter. As a result, Truex surrendered the lead to teammate Hamlin while serving his penalty by driving through pit road.

Back on the track, Hamlin was out in front by four-tenths of a second over Kurt Busch while the Team Penske trio — Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski — were in the top five. Kevin Harvick was in sixth ahead of Christopher Bell, Aric Almirola, Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman, all of whom were in the Playoffs. Teammates Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott were in 11th and 12th followed by Kyle Busch while Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon, the first two non-Playoff contenders were in 14th and 15th. Michael McDowell was in 16th ahead of Ryan Preece, Matt DiBenedetto, Corey LaJoie and Chris Buescher.

By Lap 10, Hamlin was still leading by nearly six-tenths of a second over Kurt Busch followed by the Penske trio, Harvick and Bell. Another ten laps later, Hamlin extended his advantage to nearly two seconds over Kurt Busch.

When the competition caution flew on Lap 30, Hamlin continued to lead by nearly three seconds over Kurt Busch. By then, Harvick and Bell overtook Keselowski for fifth and sixth while Elliott was in the top 10. Meanwhile, Larson, who started at the rear of the field, was up in 19th while Truex, who was sent to the rear of the field following the start of the race, was in 29th, still on the lead lap.

Under the competition caution, the leaders pitted and Kurt Busch emerged with the lead following a quick four-tire pit stop, where he was followed by Hamlin, Logano, Harvick and Blaney. During the caution period, Kyle Busch was assessed a pit road penalty for removing equipment out of his box.

When the race restarted on Lap 36, Hamlin battled dead even with Kurt Busch as he led the following lap. Despite being pressured by Busch’s No. 1 Monster Energy Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, Hamlin reassumed the lead as he was then pursued by Logano. While Blaney pressed Busch for more, Elliott was in fifth in front of Harvick and Keselowski.

Then on Lap 40, the caution flew when Kurt Busch, who was in third, spun and made hard contact into the Turn 1 outside wall after cutting a left-rear tire. The wreck was enough to end Busch’s night in the garage and put a huge dent to his Playoff hopes.

“I was just impressed with our speed and the way we unloaded and [the speed] we had in that first 30-lap run,” Kurt Busch said. “After the pit stop, something in the left rear wasn’t right. The guys said they got the tire tight. They made an adjustment and there was no rub and the left rear let go. I just radioed to them how loose the car was. Something happened with that left rear [tire]. It let go. It let go of our points and it let go of our whole season right now. I don’t know what we’re going to have to do at Bristol other than win. Now, we gotta dig out of this hole and give it out best.”

With the race restarting on Lap 47, Hamlin continued to lead over the field.

By Lap 55, Hamlin was leading by nearly a second over Blaney, with Logano, Elliott and Keselowski in the top five. Meanwhile, Larson and Truex were in 11th and 13th while Bowman, Byron, Kyle Busch and McDowell were in 15th, 19th, 23rd and 24th.

With five laps remaining in the first stage, Hamlin continued to lead by nearly four over Logano and Elliott while Blaney settled in fourth. Meanwhile, Larson was in fifth after overtaking Keselowski.

When the first stage concluded on Lap 80, Hamlin, who led all but four laps in the stage, collected his seventh stage victory of the season. Elliott prevailed over a late battle with Logano to settle in second while Larson made his way up to fourth ahead of Blaney. Chastain placed in sixth while Keselowski, Truex, Harvick and Almirola were scored in the top 10. By then, Reddick, Bell, Kyle Busch, Bowman, Byron and McDowell were in 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 19th and 21st.

Under the stage break, the leaders pitted and Hamlin retained the lead following his pit service and ahead of Elliott, Logano, Larson, Keselowski and Blaney.

The second stage started on Lap 88. At the start, Hamlin launched ahead with a strong start on the inside lane while Elliott settled in second ahead of Logano.

Three laps later, Elliott muscled his No. 9 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE into the lead over Hamlin. Meanwhile, Chastain made a bold three-wide move on Larson and Truex through Turns 2 and 3 to move his No. 42 Moose Fraternity Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE to fifth.

At the Lap 100 mark, Elliott was leading by nearly six-tenths of a second over Hamlin, with Keselowski, Chastain and Logano in the top five. Larson was in sixth ahead of Truex, Blaney, Kyle Busch and Harvick. Almirola, Byron, Bowman, Bell and Reddick were in the top 16 while McDowell was in 18th area of Erik Jones and rookie Chase Briscoe. Meanwhile, Austin Dillon was in 15th, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was in 17th, Matt DiBenedetto was in 21st, Ryan Newman was in 23rd, Bubba Wallace was in 25th behind Chris Buescher and Daniel Suarez was in 28th in between Ryan Preece and Justin Haley.

Twenty laps later, Elliott continued to lead by more than a second over Hamlin while Chastain, the highest non-title contender, was up in third. Teammates Keselowski and Logano were in the top five followed by Kyle Busch and Truex. Larson was back in eighth while Blaney and Harvick were in the top 10 ahead of Almirola, Byron, Bowman, Bell, Austin Dillon and Reddick.

Nearly 10 laps later, pit stops under green commenced as Daniel Suarez pitted followed by Reddick, Austin Dillon and Hamlin. Soon after, Elliott surrendered the lead to pit followed by Keselowski, Logano, Truex, Harvick, Kyle Busch, Blaney, Stenhouse, Bowman and others. By Lap 135, Larson surrendered his temporary lead to pit.

By Lap 138, the No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry piloted by Hamlin emerged with the lead after overtaking Elliott earlier. By then, Bell and DiBenedetto pitted under green.

Twelve laps later, Hamlin was leading by nearly half a second over Elliott while Chastain continued to run in an impressive third place. Kyle Busch and Logano battled for fourth while Truex, Larson, Keselowski, Almirola and Blaney were in the top 10 while Bowman, Harvick, Byron, Bell and Reddick were in the top 16. McDowell, meanwhile, was in 31st and two laps behind.

On Lap 162, Elliott made a bold three-wide move on Hamlin and the lapped car of Suarez to take the lead in Turn 3.

Thirteen laps later, Elliott was out in front by half a second over Hamlin while third-place Kyle Busch trailed by more than four seconds. Truex, Larson and Logano were up in fourth, fifth and sixth while Chastain fell back to seventh ahead of Almirola, Bell and Keselowski. Blaney, meanwhile, was in 11th ahead of Bowman, Byron and Harvick.

A few laps later, a second round of green flag pit stops occurred as Truex pitted followed by Hamlin, Corey LaJoie, Keselowski, Harvick, Byron, Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon and Elliott. During the pit stops, Elliott slid through his pit box and was forced to reverse into his box while the jack was still on the car. The situation quickly went from bad to worse as the jack got wedged underneath Elliott’s car, which made it a long service for the No. 9 crew.

By Lap 187 and when the green flag pit stops concluded, Hamlin cycled back as the leader by more than two seconds over teammate Kyle Busch and nearly three seconds over his other teammate, Truex. Logano and Chastain were in the top five followed by Larson, Harvick, Keselowski and Byron. Bowman, Bell and Blaney were in 11th, 12th and 13th while Elliott was mired back in 15th, the last car on the lead lap.

At the halfway mark on Lap 200, Hamlin continued to lead by more than two seconds over teammate Kyle Busch while Truex, Logano and Chastain were in the top five. By then, 15 competitors were scored on the lead lap, 13 of whom were Playoff contenders.

Twenty laps later, Hamlin stabilized his advantage to nearly two seconds over teammate Kyle Busch while Truex, Logano and Larson remained in the top five ahead of Chastain. By then, Elliott, running in 15th, was a lap behind, though he kept leader Hamlin within his sights.

Near the Lap 225 mark, Hamlin lapped the 14th-place car of Austin Dillon, leaving Dillon to battle Elliott to be the first competitor scored a lap behind. On Lap 231, however, Hamlin lapped the 13th-place competitor, Byron.

When the second stage concluded on Lap 235, Hamlin, who has led 161 laps, claimed his eighth stage victory of the season. Teammates Kyle Busch and Truex settled in second and third followed by Larson, Logano, Bell, Chastain, Almirola, Bowman and Harvick. Meanwhile, Elliott managed to overtake Austin Dillon and teammate Byron to move up to 13th and place himself as the first competitor scored a lap down, thus gaining the free pass under caution.

Under the stage break, the leaders pitted and Hamlin retained the lead following another stellar stop followed by Truex, Kyle Busch, Larson and Bell. During the pit stops, Chastain was busted with a pit road speeding penalty.

With 156 laps remaining, the final stage started. At the start, Hamlin led a Joe Gibbs Racing 1-2-3-4 charge at the front, with Truex following in second ahead of Kyle Busch and Bell, who was under pressure from Logano.

Eight laps later, the caution flew when Bubba Wallace pounded the Turn 1 outside wall and limped back to pit road with right-front damage. Under caution, some like Keselowski pitted while the rest led by Hamlin remained on the track.

With 146 laps remaining, the race restarted. At the start, Hamlin took off with another strong start followed by Truex while Kyle Busch and Bell battled for third, thus placing all four JGR competitors at the front of the field. Despite making contact with his teammate, Bell moved his No. 20 DeWalt Toyota Camry into third place ahead of Kyle Busch’s No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry.

Down to the final 140 laps of the event, Hamlin was ahead by nearly three-tenths of a second over teammate Truex while teammate Bell was in third and teammate Kyle Busch was in fourth ahead of Larson and Logano. Meanwhile, Elliott was in 11th behind Kevin Harvick and Keselowski was in 13th in between Aric Almirola and Austin Dillon.

Nine laps later, Truex motored his No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry into the lead for the first time of the evening.

Another 11 laps later, Truex pulled ahead by more than a second over teammate Hamlin while teammates Kyle Busch and Bell remained in the top four. Larson was in fifth followed by Chastain. Logano, Harvick, Elliott and Austin Dillon.

Under the final 110 laps of the event, another round of green flag pit stops commenced as Chastain, Suarez and Cole Custer pitted followed by Bowman, Kyle Busch, Keselowski, Harvick, Preece, DiBenedetto, Logano, Almirola, Blaney and others. Not long after, Truex surrendered the lead to pit along with Hamlin and Larson.

Down to the final 100 laps of the event and with the green flag pit stops occurring, Bell, who has yet to pit, was leading followed by Chastain, who was a lap down but had already pitted.

Two laps later, Ross Chastain, who notched a strong top-five result last weekend at Darlington Raceway, emerged with the lead by six-tenths of a second over Kyle Busch followed by Truex, Hamlin and Logano. By then, 13 competitors were scored on the lead lap, 11 of which were Playoff contenders, including Bell.

Another six laps later, Kyle Busch moved into the lead for the first time of the evening after overtaking Chastain.

With 75 laps remaining, Kyle Busch extended his advantage to more than two seconds over teammate Truex while teammate Hamlin trailed by more than five seconds in third. Elliott carved his way back to fourth ahead of Chastain while Bell worked his way back to sixth.

By then, Larson was back in ninth behind Logano and Harvick.

Under the final 60 laps, pit stops under green commenced again as Truex pitted along with Reddick, Keselowski, Blaney, Bowman, Harvick, Logano, Bell, Hamlin and Kyle Busch, the race leader. Soon after, disaster struck for Kyle Busch, who was forced to serve a drive-through penalty through pit road after he was caught speeding on pit road.

Down to the final 50 laps of the event, Truex emerged with the lead. By then, Larson pitted under green while Kyle Busch served his pit road penalty as the cycle of green flag pit stops were concluding.

With 40 laps remaining, Truex was out in front by more than six seconds over teammate Hamlin while teammate Bell was in third, trailing by nearly nine seconds. Elliott and Logano were in the top five followed by Chastain, Harvick, Austin Dillon, Larson and Kyle Busch, all of whom were on the lead lap. Blaney, meanwhile, was the first competitor a lap down followed by teammate Keselowski, Bowman, Almirola and Reddick.

Down to the final 20 laps of the event, Truex stabilized his advantage to nearly five seconds over teammate Hamlin while teammate Bell trailed by more than 10 seconds. While Elliott and Logano remained in the top five, Kyle Busch was in ninth behind Chastain, Larson and Harvick.

With 10 laps remaining, Truex remained as the leader by three-and-a-half seconds over teammate Hamlin. Behind, Larson and Chastain battled for sixth while Bell, Elliott and Logano remained in the top five.

Five laps later, Truex continued to stabilize his advantage to less than three seconds over his hard-charging, teammate Hamlin.

When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Truex was still leading by less than two seconds over teammate Hamlin. Having a comfortable advantage over the field, Truex was able to cycle back to the finish line and streak across the finish line to take the checkered flag and the win.

The victory was Truex’s first since winning at Darlington Raceway in May, fourth of the season, third at Richmond and the 31st of his NASCAR Cup Series career, keeping him in 28th place on the all-time wins list and one behind of NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett. The win was also the eighth of the season for Joe Gibbs Racing. Above all, Truex advanced to the Round of 12 in the Playoffs, becoming the second to do so by winning in the Round of 16.

“It’s a big day,” Truex said on NBCSN. “It’s an important day in our history. I think all of us here – yeah, we’re proud to win. This car’s amazing, and there’s so many people to thank, but what a day to win on. It reminds you that it’s a privilege it is to get to come out here and do this. All these great fans that come out here, we couldn’t do any of these types of things without the men and women that take care of us and all the first responders, police officers, firefighters, the military, you name it. NASCAR’s very patriotic…Very proud of everybody to be able to do this today.”

“[The opening lap penalty] was frustrating, I’m not gonna lie,” Truex added. “I knew we’d have a good enough car to overcome it. It felt pretty good those first couple laps, so just one of those things. You got to put it out of your mind and you got to go race. We knew there was a lot on the line tonight, so very happy to get to do this and go to Bristol without any worries next week. It’s always fun.”

Hamlin, who is already guaranteed a spot in the Round of 12 after winning last weekend’s Playoff opening event at Darlington Raceway, settled in second place for the second time this season and for the second consecutive time at Richmond.

“Yeah, just a couple more [laps],” Hamlin, who led a race-high 197 laps, said. “Our pit stops were a little slow there and we lost about two or three seconds, maybe four on pit road on those two stops, and about a second and a half behind. We were coming, just we got off track with our car right there in the middle stages of the race, but overall [crew chief] Chris [Gabehart] and the team made great adjustments there at the end on the FedEx Camry. Just needed a couple more laps, that’s all. It’s the time where you got to bring your best. The whole [Joe Gibbs Racing] team, they brought fast cars for all of us today and I really wished we had gotten two [wins] in a row, but in regardless, still a great day for our team.”

Bell secured a strong third-place result followed by Elliott, who rallied from his pit stop miscue near the halfway mark, and Logano.

“I think, obviously, all of our Joe Gibbs Racing cars were extremely fast, so hats off to everyone back there at the shop, Toyota, [Toyota Racing Development] that gives us the resources that we need to come out here and do good,” Bell said. “We knew going into Richmond that this is one of our better racetracks, so we needed to capitalize on that and get all the points we could. We got some points there in Stage 2 and got a good finish out of it. Bristol is a really good racetrack for our company and me as a driver, but it’s a little bit – it’s just you can get caught up in stuff so easily at Bristol. It’s nice to have a buffer and hopefully, we can go to Bristol and have an uneventful event.”

“I was super proud of our effort,” Elliott said. “Our entire Kelley Blue Book team did a great job preparing for this week and then coming and executing a really fast car. I’m really proud of that. I hate our incident on pit road happened. I don’t know what I would have done any different. I guess let [Chastain] go is a safe thing, but it’s so close and always hard to tell kind of when they’re going to get done on the left side. I hate that. I thought I was long in the box and backed up out of a precautionary measure, but yeah, I hate that. I know that Kyle [Busch] and Martin [Truex Jr.] were really fast there at the end. I’m not sure if we would have had anything for them, but I sure would have liked to have found out…Nice rebound after last week. Everything about Darlington, that last weekend was miserable. Nice to come here and just put together a solid night. I felt like we performed at a really high level that I know we’re capable of every week. We perform like that the rest of the season, I think we’ll be just fine.”

“It seems like we had a little something for [the Gibbs cars] on the short runs,” Logano said. “I was hoping for, maybe, a caution, a good pit stop, good restart, maybe, I would’ve had something for them. Their long haul was tremendous. A lot of long runs tonight. That was where they were better than us. We were fifth place. Yes, it’s not a win, it’s not what we want, but it’s getting the points we need to get through to the next round. It’s a solid night. I think we were third in the first stage, fifth in the second and fifth as finished. Solid night at Richmond for the Shell/Pennzoil Mustang. I wanna win. I felt like this was one of our best shots to get it.”

Meanwhile, Kyle Larson finished sixth and clinched his spot for the Round of 12 in the Playoffs based on points.

“Yeah, it’s a lot better than we were here at Richmond earlier in the year,” Larson said. “At the beginning of the race, I thought I was going to have a really good shot to win, but we kind of lost the balance there and got it back a little bit there at the end. So, we probably finished where we deserved. [Kyle Busch] kind of had his problems, so maybe we finished one spot better. Not a bad day. To go to Bristol and know that we’re locked in is nice. We’ll try to be aggressive and get a win next week.”

Chastain came home in seventh as he emerged as the highest non-title contender for a second consecutive week. Harvick, Kyle Busch and Blaney completed the top 10.

Meanwhile, Alex Bowman, who won at Richmond in April, finished 12th and is tied with Kurt Busch for the 12th and final transfer spot heading into next weekend’s first Playoff elimination event at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“I felt like we started the race struggling, didn’t have much drive and was also really tight in the center, so which do you work on, right?” Bowman said. “[Crew chief] Greg [Ives] and the guys did a really good job. We got our Ally No. 48 Camaro rolling really good at the end of Stage 2, drove it to like eighth, we were fast. Made no adjustments, put a set of Goodyears on it, and they weren’t the goodest of the Goodyears. That set [of tires] put us a lap down and really struggled to make up for that throughout the rest of the night. Unfortunately, we ended up 12th. Obviously, [I] could’ve ended up much worse…The guys right in front of us that we got to beat are all really good at Bristol. [I] Pretty much just got to go and try to win, but that’s a hole I dug myself last week when I smacked the fence on Lap 7…I feel like I can go get the job done. Just got to go do it.”

Keselowski, Almirola and Reddick finished 13th, 14th and 15th while Byron dropped back to 19th, two laps behind the leaders. Michael McDowell ended his long night in 28th, five laps behind.

There were 21 lead changes for eight leaders. The race featured five cautions for 30 laps. Only nine of tonight’s 37 starters finished on the lead lap.

Results.

1. Martin Truex Jr., 80 laps led

2. Denny Hamlin, 197 laps led, Stage 1 & 2 winner

3. Christopher Bell, 10 laps led

4. Chase Elliott, 58 laps led

5. Joey Logano

6. Kyle Larson, eight laps led

7. Ross Chastain, four laps led

8. Kevin Harvick

9. Kyle Busch, 39 laps led

10. Ryan Blaney, one lap down

11. Austin Dillon, one lap down

12. Alex Bowman, one lap down

13. Brad Keselowski, one lap down

14. Aric Almirola, one lap down

15. Tyler Reddick, two laps down

16. Chase Briscoe, two laps down

17. Daniel Suarez, two laps down

18. Matt DiBenedetto, two laps down

19. William Byron, two laps down

20. Ryan Newman, two laps down

21. Erik Jones, two laps down

22. Cole Custer, three laps down

23. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., three laps down

24. Chris Buescher four laps down

25. Ryan Preece, four laps down

26. Anthony Alfredo, four laps down

27. Justin Haley, four laps down

28. Michael McDowell, five laps down

29. Corey LaJoie, five laps down

30. BJ McLeod, seven laps down

31. Garrett Smithley, 11 laps down

32. Bubba Wallace, 12 laps down

33. Joey Gase, 13 laps down

34. JJ Yeley, 14 laps down

35. Quin Houff, 14 laps down

36. Josh Bilicki, 15 laps down

37. Kurt Busch – OUT, Accident, four laps led

Bold indicates Playoff contenders.

Playoff standings.

1. Denny Hamlin – Advanced

2. Martin Truex Jr. – Advanced

3. Kyle Larson – Advanced

4. Joey Logano, +40

5. Ryan Blaney, +28

6. Kevin Harvick, +25

7. Chase Elliott, +19

8. Christopher Bell, +17

9. Brad Keselowski, +13

10. Kyle Busch, +8

11. Aric Almirola, +3

12. Kurt Busch, +0

13. Alex Bowman, -0

14. Tyler Reddick, -5

15. William Byron, -18

16. Michael McDowell, -38

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will continue next weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race and where the first round of eliminations will occur. The race is scheduled to occur on Saturday, September 11, at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

September 12, 2021