Kyle Larson left a permanent mark on the competition and made a championship statement at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night.
The 2021 champion smoked the field and conquered the concrete, high banks of the short track in dominant fashion, leading 462 of 500 laps to win the NASCAR Cup Series’ Bass Pro Shops Night Race in Bristol, Tenn.
In the final of the three Round of 16 races, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver started second but ran one spot higher for most of the night around the half-mile bullring in the Tennessee mountains.
Larson scored his fifth win of 2024 by beating teammate Chase Elliott by 7.088 seconds in the most dominant showing in a points race so far.
“I’ve had a lot of good cars since I’ve come to Hendrick Motorsports, so it’s tough to say if (that’s the best),” said Larson, who won for the 28th time in his career and the second time at BMS. “We’ve dominated a lot of races and not closed them all out, so it was good to close this one out.”
His 462 laps led were a career high and the most by any Hendrick driver at the half-mile speedway.
Denny Hamlin finished third, Bubba Wallace took fourth and Christopher Bell was fifth.
Rounding out the top 10 were Ryan Blaney, Ryan Preece, Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman and Ross Chastain.
Ty Gibbs, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Harrison Burton saw their title hopes come to an end as the bottom quartet of drivers will not advance to the Round of 12 next Sunday at Kansas Speedway.
Hamlin, who was below the cut line before the 29th race of the season, moved above the cutoff, essentially swapping places with Gibbs, who was safely in before the 500-lap event but was nabbed for speeding on pit road.
Truex’s elimination put an end to any hope of him winning in his final season of full-time competition in the series.
Larson showed his strength early in Stage 1’s 125 laps, passing polesitter Bowman and putting championship contender Keselowski a lap down in the late portion of the segment.
The No. 5 Chevrolet stayed out front and Larson claimed his 11th stage win this season. Bowman and Bell followed in second and third, respectively.
Larson was dominant again in the second stage and made it a dozen segment wins by topping Truex and Hamlin.
In the race’s second half at Lap 329, Josh Berry’s No. 4 Ford turned the No. 7 Chevrolet of Corey LaJoie into the backstretch wall to bunch up the field with Larson and Hamlin up front.
Playoff implications arose on the ensuing pit stops as Truex was nailed for speeding on pit road and restarted back in the pack in the mid 20s. He never recovered, finished 24th and failed to advance.
–Field Level Media
