TALLADEGA, Ala. — Kyle Larson was “very happy” with his fourth place finish in the Yellawood 500 at Talladega. The finish marks just his second top five Superspeedway finish in 47 starts, almost 11 years of full time cup racing.
“Today was just that day where it worked out. Especially with that wreck on the backstretch, that easily in the past would be us in the middle of that somehow,” said Larson. Larson escaped damage from a 27 car crash in the waning laps.
“We had a great car and executed really well. We overcame from restarting at the back of the first stage and had a shot to win, so I was really happy about that. And the second stage as well, I thought we did a good job to give ourselves a shot to get some points. And there at the end too, we did a good job. There’s still areas where we can execute a little bit better, but I feel like we did a great job and we have a result to show it.”
On the final lap, Larson was pushing Keselowski on the bottom while William Byron pushed eventual race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr on the top lane. Larson said the last lap played out just how he would have liked, up until the final corner.
“Everything that played out to the exit of 4 is how I wanted it,” Larson said. “I wanted to give (Brad Keselowski) a good shove down the backstretch, get him clear some point thru 3 and 4 then when Stenhouse had momentum back, I was hoping Brad would move up and maybe chase each other way up the track and I could get a run to the lead.
“But Brad’s really smart and he probably felt his best opportunity was to stay committed to the bottom lane and he’s probably right. He didn’t lose by much, so I think he would have an easier opportunity to lose had he tried to block the top lane.”
The beginning of the race saw lots of action with four-wide racing for nearly laps. Larson said the first Stage was way more intense than it probably should have been, but was fun.
“We were all good on fuel, so I thought (the field) was going to stretch out with really fast pace and just be 2, maybe 3 wide kind of like the second stage. But it got 3 and 4 wide early enough to bog the whole field down. It was super intense. It made it fun and very nerve wracking early in the race.”
The series next heads to the Charlote Motor Speedway ROVAL, where Larson was victorious in 2021. He enters the elimination race 52 points above the Playoff cutline.