BRISTOL, Tenn. — Pole winner Kyle Larson brought a bazooka to Saturday’s shootout at Bristol Motor Speedway.
His 37 opponents brought pea shooters to the Last Great Coliseum — or so it seemed, given the degree of domination Larson exhibited in winning the SciAps 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
The driver of the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet led 277 of 300 laps in securing his first victory in two series starts this season, his second at Bristol and the 16th of his career. At the finish, there were only 12 cars on the lead lap.
Larson finished 2.054 seconds ahead of Carson Kvapil, who passed series leader Justin Allgaier for second place in traffic on Lap 298. Allgaier held third and collected his record seventh $100,000 Xfinity Dash 4 Cash bonus as the highest finisher among four eligible drivers.
To Larson, the victory was a fitting tribute to his friend and PR representative, Jon Edwards, who passed away suddenly during the week leading up to the Bristol race weekend.
“It’s awesome,” said Larson, who finished second in Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race. “I wish I could have won last night — just came up a little bit short. It’s cool to get a win this weekend for Jon and everybody’s who’s been a part of his life.”
“We’ve got one more tomorrow (in Sunday’s Food City 500 NASCAR Cup race). There’d be nothing better than to cap it off with a Cup win for Jon and all of Hendrick Motorsports… I’ve got a great car there for (Sunday). We’ve just got to execute like we did today.”
Kvapil matched his career-best finish, having run second at Dover last year. His No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was at its best in the closing laps.
“We just kept working on it and made it better and better every pit stop,” Kvapil said. “I felt like toward the end we had a pretty fast car, but there was just so much traffic, it was hard to really get into a good rhythm.”
Sammy Smith ran fourth, as JR Motorsports drivers took the three positions behind Larson and locked into Dash for Cash eligibility for next Saturday’s race at Rockingham, along with fifth-place finisher Brandon Jones of Joe Gibbs Racing.
Larson was cruising to a wire-to-wire victory in the first stage, having lapped Jeb Burton in the 14th position, when Sheldon Creed’s Ford spun sideways off Turn 4 after a bump from Dean Thompson’s Toyota.
Charging through the corner behind the spin, Brennan Poole couldn’t avoid Creed’s car, and his Chevrolet collided with Creed’s Mustang in a vicious crash that destroyed both machines and eliminated two of the four eligible Dash 4 Cash drivers from the race.Both drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center. “For Brennan’s sake, it happens so quick,” Creed said. “And I was sitting right there in the middle of the track.”
NASCAR red-flagged the race for 14 minutes 8 seconds, and Larson lost the 3.4-second lead he held over second-place Justin Allgaier and the advantage of more than 10 seconds over Connor Zilisch in third.
After the red flag was lifted, Larson and Allgaier paced the lead-lap cars to pit road—with the exceptions of Sam Mayer and Ryan Sieg, who stayed on the track and finished 1-2 in Stage 1 after a three-lap dash that ended on Lap 85.
Larson finished third in Stage 1, and after Mayer and Sieg pitted during the break, Larson regained the top spot for a restart on Lap 97. The clinic continued, with Larson winning Stage 2—his 17th stage win in the series—by nearly nine seconds over Allgaier.
After pit stops and wave-arounds, 16 drivers took the green flag for the final stage on the lead lap, and Allgaier snatched the top spot from Larson moments after the Lap 182 restart.
It didn’t last. Ten circuits later, Larson gave Allgaier’s Chevy a bump in Turn 1, moved him up the track and shot past into the lead. Allgaier kept Larson within shouting range until the lapped car of Mason Massey blocked Allgaier’s line off Turn 4 and turned sideways near the start/finish line after contact between the Camaros.
Collected in the incident and eliminated from the race was the Toyota of William Sawalich, who had been running in the top 10.
For Allgaier, the Dash 4 Cash bonus was something of a consolation prize.
“I’m just bummed about the day a little bit, to come out of here in third,” he said. “You know, I had the mistake there with the lapped car, and I wish it had gone green, because it probably would have helped us…
“But to lock three of the four (JR Motorsports drivers) into the next Dash 4 Cash is huge. I got out front there, and I just felt like we needed a little bit more to keep up with Kyle. He was obviously really good, and his pace in traffic was phenomenal.”
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