The finish of the South Point 400 NASCAR Cup Series race looked a lot like the Sept. 27 race at Kansas.
Chase Briscoe had the lead at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but it was a perilous advantage in lap traffic. Kyle Larson was charging, making a late attempt to win the race.
Larson won at Kansas
, but Briscoe held him off for the win this time on Oct. 4 at Las Vegas despite Larson's last-ditch run into the final corner.Briscoe was able to drive off the final corner on the final lap as Larson bounced off the wall and shot across the track to hit third-place Tyler Reddick.
Larson slowly crossed the finish line, while Reddick crossed spinning through the infield grass and on to pit road.
Here are the winners and losers from the NASCAR Las Vegas fall race.
NASCAR Las Vegas winners and losers
Winner: Kyle Larson and the pursuit of his third Cup title
Larson fell short of back-to-back victories and almost destroyed his race with that out-of-control last turn, but what he did do is turn a bad start to a great finish.
He spent more than 20 seconds on pit road during the first green-flag stop of the race for major adjustments, falling a lap down in the process.
Larson, driving with a Kyle Busch tribute paint scheme on the No. 5 Chevrolet, took the wave-around on the next caution to get his lap back, then made the slow trek up the leaderboard.
By the end of Stage 2, Larson was 10th. And by the final run, he was the fastest car on the track during large stretches.
The finish nearly wrecked it all.
Larson said after the race that on the final turn, his car got "really loose and overcorrected" into the fence as he chased Briscoe.
He and Reddick were fortunate to preserve their finishes after that incident, but Larson leaves Vegas with a 40-point lead. If he wins the Cup title next month, this result will be a major reason why.
Winner: Team Penske
Penske's three Chase drivers are all about a full race's amount of points (or a bit more) off of Larson's lead, but that doesn't discount the real improvement for the trio at intermediate tracks.
All three finished in the top 10 at Las Vegas, led by Austin Cindric in fourth. (Cindric has back-to-back top-5 finishes for the first time in his Cup career.)
Ryan Blaney finished fifth, with Joey Logano earning 10th.
Logano has the best chance to jump into the Chase mix, 67 points behind Larson with five races to go and some friendly tracks later on.
Penske continues to trend positively with five weeks to go.
Loser: Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin, once the title favorite, is starting to fall further behind in the Chase points standings.
Hamlin trails Larson by 40 points after the Las Vegas race in which he started on the pole but failed to record stage points in Stage 1 after spinning on his own with three laps to go while in fourth.
Hamlin again had an issue ahead of a restart in the final stage, losing power before getting back going. But he dropped outside the top 20 before the final 100 laps.
The No. 11 never really contended up front again, settling for a 16th-place finish.
How fast was Hamlin before the spin? He recorded the race's fastest lap on Lap 3.
Loser: Christopher Bell
Christopher Bell earned 17 stage points at Las Vegas, which only softened the blow of his 23rd-place finish after he battled power steering issues in the second half of the race.
Bell first reported the issue in the second stage, in which he finished second. But after a lengthy couple of pit stops during the stage break, Bell was told that the power steering issue wouldn't be completely fixed.
Thus, the No. 20 Toyota started the final stage at the back of the pack and virtually stayed there, with his lap times suffering in the difficult handling conditions with air temperatures outside of the car well above 90 degrees.
Bell has won in the Chase, but he is now 50 points behind Larson.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: NASCAR Las Vegas winners, losers as Kyle Larson overcomes early struggles for good points day
