With a car that wasn’t handling particularly well at a track that isn’t one of his best, Kyle Larson nevertheless engineered a ninth-place finish in Sunday’s First Data 500 at Martinsville Speedway and left the track in seventh place in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff standings.
Yes, Larson is still 24 points behind fourth-place Joey Logano with two races left in the Round of 8, but with an astute pit call by crew chief Chad Johnston, he accumulated 37 points for the event and now heads to Texas, where his prospects should be considerably brighter.
Larson failed to score in Stage 1 of Sunday’s race, but when Clint Bowyer’s flat tire caused the fourth caution of the afternoon with nine laps left in Stage 2, Johnston kept Larson on the track while all other lead-lap cars came to pit road.
The result was a second-place finish in the stage—with only race winner Martin Truex Jr. passing Larson before the green / checkered flag—worth nine important points.
“This is my second-best finish at Martinsville, so I’m really happy with that,” said Larson, who ran third in the 2016 spring race at the .526-mile short track. “We were able to steal some stage points as well, so we probably overachieved for how we usually run at Martinsville.
“I haven’t seen the points spread yet, but I would say we maintained from where we came in, so I’m happy about that.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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