Kyle Larson picked up his first superspeedway win at Talladega on Sunday to secure a commanding lead in The Chase with two races left in the season.
The YellaWood 500 finished in overtime due to a “big one” wreck with two laps to go, after Carson Hocevar got into the back of Joey Logano, who was running near the front.
Logano spun sideways into the wall, then got hit by Chase Briscoe, flipped and ended up on his roof. The race was red-flagged while the safety crews got the car upright, but Logano was uninjured in the dramatic crash.
Overtime kicked off with Todd Gilliland and Larson on the front row. Larson had the lead at the white flag, but lost it when Austin Hill gave him a bad push and broke the draft. Larson fell back to 11th as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. drove to the front, but then Larson picked up a push from Ross Chastain and rocketed to the inside to steal the win at the line.
“I got really lucky with kinda how everything worked out there,” Larson said after the race.
“I was pissed at myself off of [turn] two, I’m like, hands off the wheel, just mad, and then all of a sudden, like, I don’t know, everything just opened up off of [turn] four. So, they almost crashed into three, just able to keep my momentum up. Unbelievable way to get my first speedway win.”
Larson finished fourth in Stage 1 and second in Stage 2 and came away with 71 points on the day to stretch his lead to 73 points over Denny Hamlin and 74 points over Christopher Bell, who had trouble early and finished 35th. Briscoe ended up in 33rd and is 79 points behind Larson, while Logano was scored 34th and is 100 points back.
Larson gave credit to all of his fellow Chevrolet drivers, including Hill and Chastain, who were clearly doing their best to help him win the championship, as the competition is essentially down to him against Toyota and Chevy drivers.
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The race saw one of the most unusual moments at Talladega in years during Stage 1. NASCAR implemented a new lower-drag aerodynamics package to make it easier to pull out of the pack to make moves to pass. Drivers have been finding it hard to pass in recent years, so they often drive slowly to save fuel in order to shorten their pit stops to gain positions over drivers who need longer stops.
The final two stages were short enough that pit stops weren’t necessary, but Stage 1 required at least one stop, The pack looked like it was going to be saving fuel as it crept along at speeds that dipped below 170 mph at one point on the 200 mph track, but then the RFK Racing trio of Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece went full throttle and ran away before anyone realized what was happening. They built a 40-second lead and nearly caught up to the back of the pack by the pit cycle, and went on to sweep the stage with a 20-second gap. It was entertaining, but didn’t have much bearing on the rest of the race and Preece ended up finishing 13th, while Keselowski and Buescher were DNFs in 24th and 32nd.
With his points lead, Larson has a shot at wrapping up the championship at Martinsville on Nov. 1 with one race to spare if he has another big points day, but he only has one win at the half-mile oval.
