By Matt Courson, Staff Writer
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Darlington. Indianapolis.
Just two races remain in the regular season for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and Kyle Larson is gaining momentum for when the Playoffs begin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next month.
Larson, who has not visited Victory Lane in nearly two years, finished sixth in the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. The finish marks his seventh top-10 in 12 starts at the track nicknamed “The Last Great Colosseum”.
“We’ve been quietly building momentum and speed and have had a lot of good runs here recently,” Larson said. “We’ve just got to keep it going here in these next couple of races and get in the Playoffs and carry it on through that.”
Larson says that it was difficult to pass and that he could have contended for the win had it not been for contact on pit road with Erik Jones.
“It was difficult to pass. I think we could have had a good run for the win there, but we had some left front damage on the second to last stop that we made. As soon as I turned into my stall, the 20 was going to put his right front on and I clipped him.
“It pushed our left front fender in and then we had to come down and repair it the next pit stop. If we didn’t have to do that, we would have restarted sixth, which would have been really nice for that last big run there. I felt like my car was really good on the long runs. We could have given it a run for the win, but we ended up coming home sixth. We were probably the third-best car there at the end.”
Larson is currently 74 points ahead of Daniel Suarez, who holds the final transfer spot into the Playoffs. A win at either Darlington (where he dominated last year) or Indianapolis would guarantee him a chance to compete for the championship.