By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
The Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway was a case of deja vu for Kyle Larson.
After dominating and eventually losing Saturday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race, a similar result occurred in Cup Series competition on Sunday, where Larson led a race-high 284 laps and settled for third.
“It got crazy at the end and still finished third with the strategy,” Larson said. “It’s been a long time since I gotten good stage points I feel like.”
Indeed, the race was thrown a curveball with 22 laps remaining when Chase Elliot spun his Chevrolet in Turn 3. It kicked off a strategy game up front, with race leader Ty Gibbs opting to stay out with some friends while Larson and Ryan Blaney pitted for two tires.
And despite an additional restart and Gibbs and Blaney battling hard up front, Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 was unable to pounce.
“I knew if [Blaney] ever had a good pit stop or an even better restart, which both of those started happening, he’d be tough to hold off,” he said. “That was the case, he was flying.
“He got adjusting on our car and thought we made it a little worse and then the No. 54 [Gibbs] got by us the last run.”
Larson believed that his leading power was supported by Blaney’s struggles on pit road, which gave Larson the opportunity to hold the race lead.
“Thankfully, the [No.] 12’s pit crew, I don’t know what was happening with their day on pit road, but it was putting them behind and having to work,” he said. “It allowed me to settle in, led laps and barely hold onto some stages.”
With a new tire compound and horsepower, Larson leaves Bristol on the positive side of its effect on the Bristol racing.
“I actually ended up being really happy with the tire,” he said. “I don’t know what others thought, I’m sure race fans are gonna have their opinions and want the chaos of the other stuff we used to have.
“Once the rubber gets so laid down and you know you don’t have a 100-lap run to the end, you can go up there and push hard and not worry about beating your right-rear tire off your car.”
Next week at Kansas will be the one-year mark since his last Cup win. The two-time champion sits sixth in the championship standings.
“I thought it was a great race,” he said. “It could have been a much more boring race if the No. 12 had better pit stops. But thanks to that, it made it an exciting race.”