NASCAR at Las Vegas live updates: Kurt Busch wins

NASCAR heads West for its first Cup Series race in the Round of 12. The South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway starts at 7 p.m. Sunday on NBCSN.

The South Point 400 is 400 miles (267 laps) with stages ending on laps 80, 160 and 267. Click here for a live NASCAR leaderboard.

Follow along here for lap-by-lap updates from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Refresh this page for the latest updates and follow NASCAR reporter Alex Andrejev on Twitter at @AndrejevAlex.

NASCAR at Las Vegas winner: Kurt Busch

Busch finished first in The South Point 400, followed by Matt DiBenedetto and Denny Hamlin.

NASCAR race results

10:13 p.m., Lap 260: Another caution on last laps

Caution for Byron. Lap 261. LaJoie on pit road with damage. DiBenedetto and Kurt Busch one and two at the restart.

9:52 p.m., Lap 239: Matt DiBenedetto leads after caution

A caution was issued for debris on the backstretch. Jimmie Johnson blew a rear tire. On the restart it’s DiBenedetto and Kurt Busch leading with 25 to go.

9:35 p.m., Lap 217: Bad luck for Austin Dillon

Dillon went to pit road complaining that he lost power steering. It could be the end of his night.

9:15 p.m., Lap 190: Caution

Hamlin and Truex Jr. are out front after the latest caution, this one for debris on the track. Elliott dropped two spots to fourth after the pits. Austin Dillon’s team was penalized for a pit road violation.

9:07 p.m., Lap 171: Alex Bowman briefly leads, but Hamlin sneaks by

Hamlin and Bowman lead the field on the restart (Hamlin on the outside and Bowman on the inside). Bowman gets the clean air out front and leads for a few laps, but drives high rounding Turn 2 and on the frontstretch heading into Turn 3, allowing Hamlin to slip under him for first place. “That was pretty stupid on my part,” Bowman says on his team radio. The order is now Hamlin, Elliott, Bowman, Truex, Blaney, Bowyer, DiBenedetto, Dillon.

8:55 p.m., Lap 180: Chase Elliott wins Stage 2

Chase Elliott battled through traffic in the final laps of the stage as Denny Hamlin chased him down from second. Elliott never gave up the lead once he got back to the front, though. Elliott, Hamlin, Bowman, Truex, Blaney, Dillon, Harvick, DiBenedetto, Bowyer and Byron close the first stage in the top-10 in that order. Kyle Busch drops to 11th at the flag and gains no stage points. Tyler Reddick scraped the wall earlier and is out of the race with damage following the stage close.

8:48 p.m., Lap 145: Elliott back to the front

The Roush Fenway Fords of Chris Buescher and Ryan Newman lead in first and second, respectively, after Byron pits on the green flag. But Elliott is chasing them down. Newman pits on lap 142 and Buescher follows two laps later. So Elliott returns to the top spot, but. Hamlin is on his tail, less than a second behind with fewer than 10 laps to go in Stage 2. Bowman, Truex, Dillon, Blaney, Harvick, DiBenedetto, Kyle Busch and Bowyer follow in the top-10.

8:33 p.m., Lap 119: Green flag pit stops

Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas of Truex, Hamlin and Kyle Busch lead the field to a round of green flag pit stops. Busch’s team has. a slower pit stop, however, due to trouble win an air gun. He gets off pit road a few positions down, in 13th. The Gibbs cars are followed by Harvick and Elliott pitting from the top-10 on the same lap. Keselowski and Logano pit later, on lap 124, and William Byron stays out to remain the leader by lap 130. He pits on lap 134.

8:15 p.m., Lap 88: Three-wide restart goes rogue

Kyle Busch leads the field off the restart from the outside, followed by Hamlin and Elliott in that lane. Logano and Dillon take the inside lane and once the green flag comes out the field runs three-wide rounding the turns. Around Turn 3, Logano and Busch make contact while Hamlin dives low, followed by Elliott for the first and second place spot. Busch says he has damage to the right rear side of his No. 18 Toyota, but it’s not severe damage. Logano has tires rub and potentially some left rear damage. He heads to pit road for a tire change and drops to the bottom half. Busch holds onto fourth. Alex Bowman gets up to third place.

8:02 p.m., Lap 80: Denny Hamlin wins first stage at Las Vegas

Denny Hamlin appears to have broken his Round of 16 slump in the first round at Las Vegas, leading the most laps in the first stage after taking the lead on the restart. With the fresh air, Hamlin puts almost three seconds between him and Logano in second at the green-and-white checkered flag to close the stage. He wins stage one. Track position is clearly important in this race, with the inside lane on the restarts looking preferable. Logano, Kyle Busch, Elliott, Harvick, Dillon, Blaney, Bowman, Truex and Bowyer make it into the top-10 for the first stage. Kyle Busch wins the race off pit road again. “Reset your brakes. Reset your tools. Hydrate,” Hamlin’s team tells him over the radio after the driver’s ninth stage win.

7:50 p.m., Lap 53: Keselowski struggles

The order has settled into Hamlin, Logano, Ky. Busch, Elliott, Harvick, Bowman, Dillon, Blaney, Truex and DiBenedetto in the top-10. The top-eight are all playoff drivers, as is Truex. Brad Keselowski, who was projected to perform well is lowest-running playoff driver in 20th. His team tells him to drive the lanes where others in front of him are fast. Hamlin reports he’s tight rounding Turn 1.

7:44 p.m., Lap 40: Hamlin snags the lead off restart

Drivers chose their lanes on the restart with Busch leading from the outside, followed by Harvick and Elliott. Denny Hamlin, then Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr. took the inside lane, and get the advantage. Hamlin gets a push by Logano on the first laps after the restart to take the lead. Logano gets to second, followed by Busch in third as Harvick drops back to sixth, battling with Elliott then Truex.

7:32 p.m., Lap 25: Elliott speedy, still leading

Elliott reports he’s loose rounding the corners (especially Turns 1 and 3) to his team, but he continues to dominate the field from the front. He has almost three seconds between him and Kyle Busch in second place at the competition caution. Meanwhile, drivers Chad Finchum and Timmy Hill are in the garage before the caution flag for car issues. William Byron and Christopher Bell get speeding penalties on pit road and must restart at the rear. Kyle Busch wins the race off pit road.

7:22 p.m., Lap 7: Chase Elliott gets quick lead

Harvick, starting on the inside lane, drops back to third place early, as Chase Elliott gets a push from Joey Logano off the start and drives below Harvick from the inside lane to the lead. He’s led all laps. Logano leads the opening laps in second, but Busch, who started in the front row, eventually gets back in front of Logano. Harvick drops to fourth behind Logano and Kurt Busch is in fifth.

7:13 p.m.: Engines are fired, getting ready for green

Pace laps are underway with Harvick and Kyle Busch in the front row. There is a lot of grip on this track, which has 18-20 degrees of banking in the corners, so we’ll likely see drivers moving around, changing lanes, and running three- and four-wide.

7:03 p.m.: Pre-race ceremonies

Race chaplain Billy Mauldin delivers the invocation and Nashville recording artist Sierra Black performs the national anthem as the grid stands for empty stands. It is 94 degrees at the speedway, and expected to drop to around 90 by 10 p.m. A fleet of A-10 Warthog jet flies over the speedway to close pre-race ceremonies before the command.

6:51 p.m.: Wallace, Hamlin comment on the Michael Jordan deal

Drivers are at the their cars getting ready to fire engines and roll off the grid in the next half hour. While waiting, NBCSN conducts interviews with drivers Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace, who announced a partnership with Michael Jordan earlier this week. Hamlin will be a minority owner in a Cup team Jordan owns and Wallace will be the driver starting next season. Wallace says Jordan called him and said, “We want to do this, right? No more messing around. We want to win.” Hamlin says he’s excited about the deal and looking forward to bouncing back from a rough Round of 16 tonight.

6:30 p.m.: NASCAR honoring cancer heroes

Names of cancer heroes of various ages and stages of the disease will be seen on each driver’s car tonight in an effort by the NASCAR Foundation and the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation to honor survivors and those affected by cancer. Many drivers share personal connections with their heroes. Ryan Blaney, for example, tweeted that his hero, Mark Butler played on the same high school basketball team as his father, Dave, and uncle, Dale, and raced together growing up.

6:15 p.m.: Inspection is complete, lineup stands

NASCAR announces its pre-race technical inspection is complete with NO two-time failures. That means the lineup stands (for now). Last weekend, multiple Gibbs cars, those of Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Erik Jones, were penalized before Bristol for twice failing inspection and started at the back for the race. Tonight, Busch will start in the front row behind Kevin Harvick after finishing second behind the regular season champion at Bristol. Busch still hasn’t won a race yet this season, but he could break his streak tonight at his hometown track. His five-year-old son, Brexon, won his first race at the Cadets level last night.

What channel is the NASCAR race on today?

• Cup race: South Point 400

• Distance: 400 miles, 267 laps (stages end on lap 80, 160, 267). The track is 1.5 miles.

• When: Sunday 7 p.m.

• TV: NBCSN (broadcast starts at 6:30 p.m.)

• Radio: PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

NASCAR playoff standings

NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas starting lineup

*Playoff driver

This story was originally published September 27, 2020 at 6:15 PM.

Alexandra Andrejev

The Charlotte Observer

NASCAR and Charlotte FC beat reporter Alex Andrejev joined The Observer in January 2020 following an internship at The Washington Post. She is a two-time APSE award winner for her NASCAR beat coverage and National Motorsports Press Association award winner. She is the host of McClatchy’s podcast “Payback” about women’s soccer. Support my work with a digital subscription