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By Michael Jaworecki
When you look up the term domination in the dictionary there should be a picture of Kyle Larson next to it. With a rough start to the playoffs with a crash at Atlanta Motor Speedway Kyle Larson turned around his championship hopes in a big way with a dominating win on Saturday night. The round of 16 is over and while some drivers, including Larson, were never in doubt of moving on to the round of 12 others would not find out for sure for sure late in the race while fighting for every possible point they could.
Going into the famed night race at Bristol, four drivers were hanging below the cut line to make it into the round of twelve. Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski, and Harrison Burton would all have a stressful night trying to manage traffic and staying out of trouble. Unfortunately, only one of these drivers would manage to drive and survive. Denny Hamlin had a strong run bringing the FedEx Toyota Camry home in 4th place securing his spot in the round of twelve. While it wasn’t expected that the famed Wood Brothers number 21 car driven by Harrison Burton would advance, it certainly was a disappointing night for Harrison Burton who would only complete 422 of the 500 laps and finish in 35th place.
A fan favorite who had their hopes of progressing in the playoffs dashed was Martin Truex Jr. Truex Jr., who is in his final season of competing in NASCAR had hopes of going out on top with another Cup Series championship, would succumb to a speeding penalty on pit road. He would never recover and finish in 24th place after battling with the leaders throughout the early stages of the race. Brad Keselowski and Ty Gibbs would also fail to earn enough points to move on to the round of twelve in the NASCAR Playoffs.
The anticipation for this race was great after the Food City 500 in April had used a tire with great fall off that produced some great racing. PJ 1 was applied to the surface and in the sunshine really caused tire fall leading to 16 drivers shared the lead in that race.
Hendricks teammates Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman would take off and lead at the drop of the green. Alex would lead early but Larson would take over leading 94 laps of the first stage. Early in the race 9 out of the top drivers were in the playoff hunt, the lone exception was Bubba Wallace.
Stage two would start as stage one ended with Kyle Larson jumping out to the lead. Just as with Saturday night’s race, the laps ticked off quickly with limited cautions. The leaders lapped up to the 23rd spot by lap 83.
The story line other that Larson domination was the battle from 9th-14th place positions in chase points. were constantly as drivers moved up and down in the race and stage points were awarded.
Harrison Burton who needed a win to get in has struggled all night and needed a miracle to advance. The same story with Brad Keselowski who struggled from the outset. Steering issues ended Harrison Burton’s any chance of moving on in the playoffs and Brad would struggle all night finishing 23rd in the final run down.
Just short of halfway Joey Logano’s who was already locked into the next round made contact with another competitor sent him spinning flattening both right side tires and put him into the inside wall. He would continue but finish 28th.
After Stage two three drivers had enough points to advance Logan, Christopher Bell and Alex Bowman.
Sounding like a broken record, stage three started as one and two ended with Kyle Larson leading from the green and building a commanding lead. Since Kyle Larson dominated the race you would think it was a boring race but that was far from the case.
Bass Pro Shops Night Race Notes:
The stage would only have 1 caution when the #7 of Cori Lajoie had an incident in turn 2. This was the last time for teams to put on fresh rubber and make any adjustments.
Cory Lajoie had a great evening running 11th. Unfortunately he got loose, and Josh Berry got into the back of him sending him into the outside wall.
Speeding penalties for Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs really hurt both of their playoff chances. Both
Martin Truex Jr. who is retiring after this season looked to have the round of 12 in hand early but a 24th place finish dropped him to 14th in the playoff chase ending his run to another championship.
Not mentioned all night because he is not a chase car, but Ryan Preece moved into the top 10 late in the race finishing in 7th one of only three non-chase drivers in the top ten. Bubba Wallace finished 3rd and Ross Chastain finished 10th.
It was a stressful race for Daniel Suarez he started +36 points to the good. |He qualified 4th but a speeding penalty and an ill-handling car found him fighting for the last spot in the round of 12 with Ty Gibbs. Fortunately for Daniel the cushion was enough for 12th place in the points.
Amazing pit stop recovery from Chase Briscoe’s when a center lug went flying and the tire changes just grabbed a spare off his belt without missing a beat.
The NBC speed shot camera embedded in the wall gave a cool speed shot really showing how fast the cars travel in the turns.
5 total cautions including the stage cautions
462 laps lead was the most any Hendricks car every led in a race, the only other leaders were Alex Bowman
Kyle’s son Owen Larson took the victory lap with dad.
Total race time 2 Hours 37 minutes.
