How Kyle Larson tamed Las Vegas and punched his ticket to NASCAR’S Championship Four
Kyle Larson saw a car flying toward him in his mirror.
But by the time the front of Christopher Bell’s Toyota Camry was inches away from the back of Larson’s Chevy Camaro, Larson was crossing the finish line.
Larson’s fourth win of the season punched him a ticket to the Championship Four on Nov. 5 at Phoenix.
“A lot of good fortune this weekend,” Larson told the PRN radio broadcast afterward. “This being a 400-mile race instead of a 401-mile race. Gotta take advantage of it when things like that happen.”
Larson was dominant throughout Sunday’s race, but so was Bell.
They started the race side-by-side, with Bell on the pole and Larson in second. The No. 5 car grabbed its first lead on Lap 3 and swept the first two stages. Meanwhile, Bell was running near the lead and among the top five for nearly the entire race, finishing the stages in second and third place, respectively.
“We were both driving as hard as we could, and that was what we had left,” Bell told the PRN radio broadcast. “I don’t really feel like I left anything out there.”
While Larson held commanding leads throughout the afternoon, even his performance wasn’t perfect.
Around the middle of the race, Larson made contact with the wall on a turn while in the lead. His car briefly spun and slowed up, but the miscue didn’t merit a caution.
“I almost gave it away there in one and two, getting sideways, hitting into the wall,” Larson said on the front stretch afterward. “Had to fight back there with our balance. They got it much closer there in the lead. I was happy to pull away as much as we did. Was hoping that was going to be enough to maintain, which it was. I thought they weren’t going to be able to get as close as they did there at the end. Nerve-wracking.”
Bell still winless, remains below the cut line
As strong as Christopher Bell’s day was, accumulating 17 of 20 possible stage points, he’s still sitting two points below the elimination line.
Bell’s victory at Bristol Dirt back in April remains his only win this season. While he’s had the fastest car in qualifying, recently winning the pole in four of the seven playoff races, he hadn’t finished higher than third until Sunday, since that win at Bristol.
“I mean, I don’t know what else I could have done,” Bell said afterward. “I don’t know. I feel like that was my moment. That was my moment to make the Final Four. Didn’t quite capture it.”
Playoff standings: The favorites stay above the cut line
William Byron (nine points above the elimination line), Martin Truex Jr. (+2) and Denny Hamlin (+2) sit behind Larson in the playoff standings after the first race of the Round of 8.
Truex has had his share of misfortune in the playoffs but rebounded with a ninth-place finish Sunday at Las Vegas, his first Top 10 since Watkins Glen in August.
After Bell, Tyler Reddick (-16), Ryan Blaney (-17) and Chris Buescher round out the playoff drivers on the bubble. Two races remain in the Round of 8: at Homestead-Miami and Martinsville.