TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) — Kyle Larson picked a perfect time — and made some perfect moves — for his first NASCAR Cup Series victory at Talladega Superspeedway.
Desperate for a rebound after his worst finish of the Chase, the defending series champion expanded his points lead by a wide margin with a breathtaking rally from 11th to first on the final lap.
In a three-wide finish, Larson took the checkered flag by a few feet over Hendrick Motorsports teammate
William Byron, who spent much of the race pushing Larson to the front. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished 0.066 seconds behind in third place.
Larson took the white flag in the lead but lost 10 spots after getting shoved out of first on several bumps by Austin Hill.
With his third victory in the past seven races, Larson moved 73 points ahead of Denny Hamlin in the Chase standings with two races remaining.
There were two impressive rallies in the closing laps by Larson.
After plummeting from the lead to 21st in four laps, he had made his way back to second on the 184th lap when a 15-car crash erupted that stopped the race 13 minutes for a track cleanup that sent the race into overtime.
Despite leading the Chase for the past five races, Larson came in as an underdog at Talladega, one of three drafting tracks on the circuit where drivers run inches apart at 200 mph. The three-time series champion had a series-worst average finish of 30.6 at Talladega, Daytona and Atlanta, and hadn’t won on any of the tracks in 58 prior starts (the longest superspeedway drought among active drivers).
But he led 21 laps and made nearly all the right moves in the finicky draft where a split-second mistake can cause a large pileup – and many of his title rivals made costly mistakes over the course of 500 miles.
A 12-car crash on the 132nd lap collected five Chase drivers, effectively ending the championship hopes for Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick.
“Just a bumper car-type thing,” said Blaney, who lost control of his No. 12 Ford on a bump from Bubba Wallace after swinging into the top lane. “Ended up crashing and took a lot of others. Maybe it wasn’t the best move by me. I have to think about it more.
“This one hurts. We needed to have a good day. We’ll just have to go to Martinsville next week and see what we can do to rebound. Just try to show up and be the best we can. It’s all we can do.”
Christopher Bell, who entered just five points behind Larson, crashed after spinning while entering the pits under green for his first pit stop on Lap 56. He fell 10 laps down for repairs to his No. 20 Toyota, which was able to complete the race in 35th but dropped Bell to third in the standings.
The Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing trio of Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski swept the top three spots in the first stage with a unique strategy that had the rest of the field nearly a lap down at one point.
With many drivers conserving fuel to shorten their first green-flag pit stop, Buescher, Preece and Keselowski broke from the pack with laps that were 10 seconds faster. They had a lead of more than 40 seconds and easily stayed more than half a lap ahead of the field through the end of the stage on the 98th lap.
“A great game of poker where we just called the field,” Keselowski radioed his team. “I love it.”
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to its final short track of the season with Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, Nov. 1. Chase Elliott outdueled Denny Hamlin for the victory earlier this season.
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