By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Throughout the early part of the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it appeared that Kyle Larson was not going to be in contention to win the race, but he was able to rebound for a second-place finish.
In the first stage, Larson had a right front tire go down on Lap 69. He made his way down pit road to replace the tire. Luckily, there were only 11 laps in the stage. He lost one lap.
“That was unfortunate there losing that right front towards the end of stage one because we were going to get some stage points. I lost out on some good valuable points,” Larson said.
When the caution for the stage break occurred, Larson was able to take the wave around to get back on the lead lap. The luck continued for the young driver. A caution flag was unfurled just three laps after the restart. The No. 42 team was able to get back on pit sequence with the race leaders.
The quest towards the front of the field was on. Larson was able to take the lead on Lap 167 and contend for the win.
After battling Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., and Joey Logano at the end, Larson was able to find himself finishing in second.
“Yeah, the restarts a couple of them worked out for me and a couple of them didn’t. But, was happy to end up second there. Didn’t really expect to get to second there on that final restart, but it was pretty hectic,” he said about the finish of the race.
As the series heads to Richmond Raceway, Larson hopes to have another chance for his first win of 2018.
He finds himself eighth in points, just 19 points above the Playoff cutoff line.