Kyle Larson wins NASCAR’s first Nashville Cup race, full results and recap

It was a race of blown brake rotors and cut tires at Nashville Superspeedway, a track that hosted its first NASCAR Cup race on Sunday.

The Ally 400 winner didn’t blow any rotors. Kyle Larson wasn’t braking much, leading 264 of 300 laps, including the final one, to win his fourth race of the Cup Series season.

He finished with a 4.3 second lead over Ross Chastain, who finished in second. William Byron finished in third.

Larson’s No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels was on the radio reminding Larson to conserve fuel at the end of the race as he stayed out front for the final 78 laps. No unexpected cautions came to bunch the field during that time.

So it was up to Larson and his team not to make any mistakes, including maneuvering through a mild drama in the final 50 laps in which debris was stuck on the leader’s grille, causing the car to overheat. Larson slid behind a lapped car, the debris blew off and he was back to sailing away with another win.

“We never really had to run behind people, so I don’t know,” Larson responded on NBCSN when asked if the win felt dominant. “If one of my teammates got out front again, it would have been hard to pass them.”

Byron was running in second late in the race, and could have potentially put up another 1-2 Hendrick Motorsports finish, as the organization has done in the last four races. Team owner Rick Hendrick said he wished Byron had “a little bit of gas” to stay ahead of Chastain at the end of the race for another top-two, but still called it “pretty flawless all day long” for the No. 5 team.

“They’ve been in full stride here for the last seven, eight weeks, and really all year,” Hendrick said. “It’s good to finish it off.”

Hendrick, Larson and Daniels also all commented on the crowd at Nashville, which sold out its roughly 40,000 seat capacity for NASCAR’s return to the track since races there for the Xfinity and Trucks Series for the first time since 2011. The last Cup race near the city was at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway in 1984, when Geoff Bodine took the checkered flag for Hendrick Motorsports in the No. 5 car.

Traffic issues for fans arriving at the 1.33-mile track in Lebanon, Tenn., forced NASCAR to delay its green flag start time by 10 minutes, and the grandstands appeared packed throughout the race. Hendrick said it felt like “old times.”

“I got trapped trying to get in,” Hendrick said. “But it just felt good. It felt like we were back years ago with fans excited, (standing) shoulder to shoulder.”

Although Larson dominated, the slick, all-concrete track was no easy feat for most teams. At least six teams and drivers, including Ryan Blaney, Ryan Preece, Cole Custer and Chase Briscoe, suffered from broken brake rotors that forced them to the garage early. Leading laps helped take that concern away for Larson.

He started fifth after qualifying, and quickly jumped up to the lead within the first 10 laps, then pitted when a caution came out at the end of the first stage. Larson finished in third in that stage, then won the second stage after multiple cautions for debris on the track and debris causing spins.

Kyle Busch, who won Saturday’s Xfinity race at the track for his 100th career win in the series, was considered a top contender before the event. He raced in the top-10 throughout the evening, but cursed out his ill-handling equipment, dropping multiple F-bombs on his team radio. He fell back to 24th at one point during the final stage, but finished 11th. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. had similar struggles, and both pitted late in the final stage for fuel for a 22nd and 23rd place finish, respectively.

Hamlin continues to lead the series in points (684) after Sunday, but his lead over Larson (675) has been cut to just 10 points, while Larson has passed Truex for the most race wins with four. His earlier wins this season were at Las Vegas, Charlotte and Sonoma, as well last weekend’s non-points All-Star Race for a million dollar prize.

Larson’s victory at Nashville came in his first race with sponsor Valvoline, a company that said it would match his personal contribution to charitable organizations working with his Drive for 5 campaign. Larson and Valvoline have pledged $5 each for every lap completed and $5,000 for a top-five finish at Nashville, bringing their total contributions from Sunday to $13,000.

“I look forward to the other couple races with Valvoline (at Daytona and Bristol) and hopefully we can get some more partners throughout the rest of the season,” Larson said.

Race results

*Elliott was disqualified after post-race inspection for four loose lug nuts. He originally finished 13th.

This story was originally published June 20, 2021 at 7:46 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