Kyle Larson has won a lot of races in his NASCAR Cup Series career. Championships, too. But what he pulled off Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway might be the loudest statement of the lot. And he even added a couple of exclamation points for good measure.
With the YellaWood 500 headed for overtime, Larson was leading the field and looking rather pleased with himself. Then the white flag waved, the pack swallowed him whole, and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet suddenly found itself outside the top 10. At Talladega, that’s usually the moment you start thinking about what you’re having for dinner.
Larson, apparently, had other plans.
He charged back through the pack, found himself a well-timed push and rocketed toward the front. Coming out of Turn 4, he dove low and slipped past Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to steal the lead and score his first career superspeedway victory. The margin of victory was a scarcely believable 0.041 seconds.
William Byron, Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, followed him across the line in second, with Stenhouse third. Ross Chastain and Cole Custer completed the top five.
It was a finish that would have been difficult to script without someone in the writers’ room being accused of taking creative liberties. But Larson pulled it off, dragging Byron along for the ride and delivering a victory that could have enormous consequences in the championship fight.
While Larson celebrated, several of his Chase rivals were left wondering what on earth had just happened. Others were already in the garage, having discovered the hard way that Talladega has a rather different definition of a good afternoon.
Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher and Chase Briscoe were among those caught up in two of the track’s infamous Big Ones. The second wreck was particularly spectacular, ending with Logano’s Ford sliding along the asphalt on its roof and bringing out the red flag.
It also set the stage for Larson’s improbable last-lap charge.
The opening stage began with all the excitement of a neighborhood watch meeting. With the longest first stage in Talladega history looming, drivers largely settled into fuel-saving mode, content to cruise around and avoid doing anything that might require a new race car.
That was until Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing decided the Sunday afternoon sightseeing tour had gone on long enough.
Around Lap 30, Ryan Preece and Chris Buescher were leading a group that appeared perfectly happy to take things easy. Further back, Brad Keselowski dropped out of line and put his foot down. By Lap 32, he had joined his teammates, and the three RFK Fords began working together to build an enormous advantage.
The trio soon stretched its lead to more than 40 seconds. In a sport where a tenth of a second can separate a winner from a fellow who needs to update his résumé, that was a rather substantial head start.
Green-flag pit stops began on Lap 49, with the RFK trio staying out a lap longer than the first group. Toyota’s contingent, led by Christopher Bell, came in on Lap 55, and that’s when the afternoon began to unravel for the driver who entered Talladega second in the Chase standings.
Bell spun as he slowed entering pit road and hit the wall. He was able to continue, but his Toyota had a right-front tire rub. The crew tried to clear it, apparently without quite appreciating how committed the tire was to its new relationship with the bodywork.
One lap later, Bell was back on pit road with a flat. The team then ran afoul of NASCAR’s rules for too many crew members over the wall, earning a penalty that left Bell at the back of the field.
When the dust finally settled, Bell was last and nine laps down. It was the sort of sequence that can turn a championship contender’s Sunday into a very expensive exercise in frustration.
Up front, Buescher, Keselowski and Preece cycled back to the lead on Lap 57 and resumed their long-distance domination. The RFK trio swept the top three positions at the end of the stage, finishing a remarkable 17 seconds ahead of the rest of the field, led by Larson.
Larson, meanwhile, had been forced to pit before pit road opened because he was running low on fuel. He, Byron and Reddick all had to restart from the rear after the required penalty.
So much for an uncomplicated afternoon.
With the RFK express finally brought back to the rest of the field, Joey Logano led the way when the second stage began on Lap 103. Keselowski stayed close, and the two former teammates traded the lead while the pack began to tighten.
Larson wasted little time working his way back into the top 10. With a shorter stage and valuable Chase points on offer, the fuel-saving lull was over. Drivers were no longer content to admire the scenery.
By Lap 132, the pushing and shoving had turned into something closer to a bar fight.
Blaney was pushing Logano at the front of the outside lane when the Penske teammates got out of sync. Logano appeared to check up, slowing Blaney and leaving the No. 12 Ford poorly positioned in front of Bubba Wallace. Contact followed, Blaney bounced off the outside wall and was sent careening back across the track.
Twelve cars were involved in the resulting wreck, including several drivers still fighting for the championship. Blaney, Wallace, Reddick and Elliott were among those knocked out of contention, while Denny Hamlin and Buescher were able to continue despite damage.
The caution set up a five-lap dash to finish the stage. Logano picked up another Penske teammate, Austin Cindric, as a pusher and held on to win the stage. Larson charged through the field again to finish second, collecting valuable points in the process.
By the end of the afternoon, Larson had earned 16 stage points, the most among the Chase contenders. In a race that seemed determined to take chunks out of the championship field, those points would prove rather useful.
The final stage began on Lap 145 with Buescher leading. Ten laps later, Larson was back at the front, trading positions with Logano as the laps ticked away. Stenhouse and Todd Gilliland also began making their presence felt, and the tension steadily increased.
Then, with five laps remaining, Talladega did what Talladega does best.
Logano was fighting inside the top five when his Ford suddenly snapped sideways and slammed into the outside wall. Moments later, the car was sliding upside down across the track, its roof scraping the pavement as the second Big One of the afternoon unfolded around him.
Fifteen cars were involved, and NASCAR brought out the red flag.
After safety crews carefully returned Logano’s Ford to its wheels, he climbed out and walked away. The stoppage lasted nearly 14 minutes, leaving the field to prepare for overtime and a finish that would be replayed for years.
Larson took the lead shortly after the restart. But as the field crossed the line to take the white flag, his advantage evaporated, and he was shuffled outside the top 10. For a moment, his first superspeedway victory looked as though it would have to wait another day.
Then came Turn 4.
Larson charged forward, found a massive run and dived to the bottom, slipping past Stenhouse to grab the lead just before the finish line. The driver who had looked out of contention moments earlier had somehow pulled off one of the most improbable victories of the season.
After 59 attempts, Larson had finally won at a drafting track.
Asked how he kept his composure during that final lap, Larson didn’t exactly describe a masterclass in serenity.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I got really lucky with kind of how everything worked out there.”
Larson explained that the No. 33 Chevrolet (Austin Hill) had been pushing him hard, but the assistance had also made it difficult to keep his car in line. After getting swallowed up coming out of Turn 2, he was furious with himself.
“I was pissed at myself off of two,” Larson said. “I’m like hands off the wheel, just mad. Then all of a sudden, like, I don’t know, everything just opened up off of four. Almost crashed into three, just able to keep my momentum up.”
In other words, Larson went from thinking he’d thrown away his chance to discovering that the door to victory was still open. He just had to be brave enough to drive through it.
He credited the help from Chevrolet’s many cars throughout the afternoon, including the push that helped set up his winning move. Larson said the support made it the best superspeedway race of his career.
“I felt like Dale Jr. out there with half the field kind of helping me,” he said with a smile.
It was a fitting comparison for a driver who has spent years trying to master the art of superspeedway racing, where the right push can make you a hero and the wrong one can turn your afternoon into an expensive collection of spare parts.
Larson also thanked crew chief Cliff Daniels, spotter Tyler Monn and the fans who had patiently waited for him to finally conquer a drafting track. He was especially pleased to have his family in attendance, saying he didn’t think they had been present for any of his Cup wins that season.
Now they have a Talladega trophy to take home, and Larson has something considerably more valuable: a 73-point lead over new second place Denny Hamlin in the Chase standings.
That cushion means Larson can head to Martinsville Speedway next weekend with room to breathe. He could even skip a trip to Virginia and head to Homestead-Miami Speedway still have pretty good odds to secure his third NASCAR Cup Series championship in the season finale.
A week after finishing in the garage with a DNF at Phoenix Raceway, Larson has transformed a miserable Sunday into a spectacular turnaround. He survived two enormous wrecks, banked valuable stage points and pulled off a last-lap move that will be replayed for years.
Fifty-nine tries. One ridiculous last lap. And suddenly, the road to another championship looks a whole lot smoother.
Apparently, when Kyle Larson gets backed into a corner, he doesn’t look for the exit.
He builds one.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour 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, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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