By Jerry Jordan, Editor
Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and the Chase points leader, Kyle Larson, did not lead the field off Turn 4 on the final lap of overtime Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway but somehow the field opened up in front of him and he edged out his teammate, William Byron, for the win.
Larson dove to the bottom of the racetrack after losing multiple spots off of Turn 2 and with a push from Ross Chastain, passed seven cars in the final quarter-mile. His victory over Byron was just 0.041 seconds and marked his first drafting-track victory in 59 tries. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished third, followed by Chastain, Cole Custer and Carson Hocevar as Chevrolet swept the top six spots.
The win was Larson’s third of the season, his third of the Chase and the 35th of his career, and it landed on a day when nearly every other championship contender ran into trouble. Larson banked stage points in both stages, seven in Stage 1 and nine in Stage 2, and left Alabama with 2,441 points and a 73-point lead over Denny Hamlin with two races left in the season.
Larson led the field to the white flag with Austin Hill, the Richard Childress Racing driver, pushing him from behind. Hill had been on Larson’s bumper hard through Turns 1 and 2, and when Larson’s car wandered up the racetrack, Hill ducked underneath him and took the lead away.
From there the finish unraveled for nearly everybody. Hill ran out of fuel off Turn 4 and dragged the lead pack up the racetrack with him. Larson dropped to the bottom, caught the push from Chastain and came off Turn 4 with the one thing that matters at Talladega, momentum that nobody in front of him could match.
Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports and the winner of Sunday’s race, described the final lap to reporters on the frontstretch after climbing from his car.
“I got really lucky with kind of how everything worked out there. I was so, like, edgy in one and two with the 33 pushing me, he was really helping me, but I couldn’t add wheel. Kind of wandered me up the track,” Larson said. “He got underneath me. No fault at all to him. He was helping me great all day as well as all my Chevy, GM partners. Really got to thank them for working with me all day. I really felt it. Definitely the best speedway race I’ve ever had because of it.”
“Yeah, I was pissed at myself off of two. I’m like hands off the wheel, just mad. Then all of a sudden, like, I don’t know, everything just opened up off of four. Almost crashed into three, just able to keep my momentum up,” Larson said. “Unbelievable way to get my first speedway win.”
During the post-race press conference, Larson walked through the final lap again and explained how a race he thought he had thrown away came back to him.
“Austin Hill was doing a good job of helping me whenever he was around me all day,” Larson said. “Then, yeah, there in one and two, as you can imagine, the pushes are going to get more aggressive. He was giving me shoves in the corner, which I was happy about. But as I got close to the transition from banking to flat, I just got really loose. And I just, I couldn’t turn the wheel. And it just, because my wheels are straight, I’m going straight up the racetrack. And yeah, it just forced him underneath me. And then I was just stalled out and mad at myself.
“And then, yeah, then I choked it away off turn two and was pissed. And then I’m like, man, let’s just not crash. And I guess Ross got behind me and just kind of picked my momentum back up. And I got clear to go left. And I had such a run and the shorter distance, it just worked out. So, yeah, off of turn two, definitely did not think I would win. I mean, even off turn four, I didn’t think I’d win. But that’s just speedway racing. It’s crazy.”
Larson also pointed to the help he got all afternoon from his fellow Chevrolet drivers, something he said he had never really felt at a drafting track before.
“Yeah, really all day long, I had help from the Chevy cars out there. It helped because they were all fast, as well, and had good days going,” he said. “That’s what it takes on speedways, I feel like, is to have some allies. This wouldn’t be possible without them. It’s been 22 years since that terrible plane crash that took so many loved ones from Hendrick Motorsports. I really felt like they were riding with us there on that last lap to get this win.”
RFK’s Gamble, Bell’s Spin And Two Big Wrecks
The race took its first strange turn in the opening stage, when the field settled into a fuel-saving run and the three Roush Fenway Keselowski Fords of Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski simply drove away from everybody. The trio built a lead of more than 40 seconds at one point and Buescher won the stage, leading a race-high 53 laps before he was collected in the late accident.
The first green-flag pit cycle produced the day’s first championship casualty. Christopher Bell, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver who came into the race second in the standings, five points behind Larson, spun entering pit road on Lap 56, hit the inside wall and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to dig out of the hole, finishing 35th, 12 laps down. He dropped to third in the standings, 74 points behind Larson.
Joey Logano won the second stage, edging Larson at the line, but the day kept turning. A 12-car accident on Lap 132 collected Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott, among others. The second big wreck came with five laps to go, when contact from Carson Hocevar turned Joey Logano at the front of the field. Logano’s car flipped onto its roof and slid through the tri-oval, bringing out a 13-minute red flag. Logano and Riley Herbst were both evaluated and released from the infield care center.
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford and a three-time Cup Series champion, talked about the flip after he was released from the care center.
“Just got a little push in the wrong spot there. It was a very much a Talladega Nights moment like, ‘Oh, no. I’m upside down. This is not good moment,’” Logano said. “But I can’t thank the safety crew enough. They did an amazing job flipping that thing over. The car did a great job. I appreciate what NASCAR has done. Thank you and the safety team for getting me out of there.”
Everyone Talking About The Yellow Line, Was It A Violation?
Larson’s winning run to the finish line carried his car down to the double-yellow line at the bottom of the racetrack, close enough that the finish was reviewed before the win was confirmed. Larson was asked about it directly at his press conference, whether he did or did not cross the yellow line on the run to the checkered flag.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it. But yeah, I just, I don’t know,” Larson said. “I knew it was close, and I’d have been really pissed at myself if I did go below. Because yeah, I mean, we crossed the finish line first. I’ve never done that in a Cup car. And to get it called back would have sucked. But I was fist pumping already. Like my momentum was taking me past the 47. I was fist pumping before I ever got to the line. So yeah, that would have been embarrassing if we didn’t win.”
NASCAR ruled that Larson’s tires stayed on the double-yellow line rather than going below it, which is legal, and his car passed post-race inspection to confirm the win.
Cliff Daniels, crew chief of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, said after the race that he did not know anything about a yellow-line question until he got to Victory Lane and Larson told him about it himself.
“I had no idea of that until Victory Lane,” Daniels said. “He’s like, I got to be honest with you, I started cheering before I was even close to the line. I took my hands off the wheel. That’s why I almost went below the line. I was like, Bro, are you serious right now?”
Not everyone was satisfied with the ruling. Reporter Matthew Weaver called on NASCAR to show a frame-by-frame replay of the finish so the call could be judged in the open.
Hamlin Keeps Second Place And Still Loses Ground
Denny Hamlin, who was the regular season champion, finished eighth, the best result among Larson’s closest challengers, and moved back into second in the standings. It still cost him ground. Hamlin scored no stage points and his deficit grew from 31 points to 73. A perfect race is 76 points and only Larson has that record, so far this season.
Hamlin was caught up in the Lap 132 accident and raced the rest of the afternoon with the front end knocked out of line. It plagued him for the rest of the race.
When asked how bad the damage was and the effect it had on his competitiveness, Hamlin said, “It knocked some front toe damage in it. Obviously, the body too. It was a handful, but it was at least serviceable. It wasn’t undrivable.”
Hamlin’s afternoon included an angry radio exchange in Stage 1 after his teammate Chase Briscoe left him without a drafting partner and it ended with Hamlin getting clipped by Todd Gilliland’s car entering Turn 3 on the final lap, which killed the momentum he needed to be part of the battle at the finish line.
“With everyone pulling to the top, letting me go by, I wish I could have been in it. I got clipped by the 34 on the bottom line entering turn three. I mean, all but wrecked. That killed all the momentum,” Hamlin said. “Then there was not just enough racetrack to get that momentum back in time. We ended up P8, which is, I mean, about what we thought, given everyone we’re racing. That’s what we got.”
Hamlin knows his chances are slim for a championship with just two races to go in the season.
“Yeah, truthfully, they’ve done a lot of things right. A lot of things have gone right. We’ve not done that. We’ve got a big old gap,” Hamlin said. “I think as long as he can keep his four tires on it the next two weeks, he’ll be champion again.”
Two Races Left And The Math Is Brutal
Behind Larson and Hamlin, Bell sits third in points – 74 back and Briscoe, who won the pole and finished 33rd after being caught in the late wreck, is fourth at 79 points back. Logano is fifth, 100 points behind. Blaney is in sixth at 107 back and Reddick, who started the season off like a rocket, sits in seventh at 126 back. Every other driver has been eliminated.
Hamlin goes to Martinsville as the favorite and his record there is incredible but the math says even a perfect afternoon may not save him. Larson can clinch the championship at Martinsville if he leaves with a lead of 76 points or more, which means Hamlin has to outscore Larson just to keep the title from being settled a week early. If Larson has the kind of steady day his team usually has at Martinsville, Hamlin can win both stages and the race and still watch the championship effectively end.
Larson admitted the size of the lead caught him off guard when he climbed out of the car and when asked later if he felt like the title was his to lose, he downplayed the situation.
“There’s still two races,” Larson said. “So it’s so easy to look at it and be like, oh, the 5’s got it. But we could go to Martinsville. There could be a stack up in turn three on the first lap. And I could cave in the radiator and be done. I’m not getting ahead of myself at all. I’m not going to let you guys get me ahead of myself either.”
For Hamlin, the road is difficult. He needs to win big at Martinsville and hope that Larson’s premonition of crashing out on Turn 3 comes to fruition.