NASCAR 2023 Las Vegas Fall Recap

The season continues to wind down as the stars of the Xfinity Series and NASCAR Cup Series head to Las Vegas Motor Speedway to determine who will make it to the Championship race at Phoenix.

For some young drivers, they get to winning instantly, and for some other young drivers, it may take a while but it pays off in the end. That was the case for Las Vegas-native Riley Herbst, finally getting his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory at his home track. Herbst had a nearly 15-second lead as he took the checkered flag while leading for 103 of the 201 laps. It was a special moment for the 24-year-old and many of his close friends and family members, as he climbed out of his No. 98 Monster Energy Ford emotionally.

“Oh my goodness, I love this town and I love this team,” Herbst said, effusively thanking the many people who stayed by his side as he worked his way up over the years.

“Oh my goodness, you don’t know what this means, what this takes off my chest. I can’t believe it. I love you, Las Vegas. Let’s go.”

“I’ve been working on myself and everything I can control and all I can do is all I can do,” he added. “If there was a caution, there was a caution and we would race them straight up.”

Herbst had nothing to worry about, despite not making the 2023 playoffs and re-upping with Stewart Haas Racing for 2024, there was no pressure for him as he went on to lead the final 57 laps of the Alsco Uniforms 302.

Championship favorite John Hunter Nemechek finished in second, while Herbst’s teammate Cole Custer finished third. Chandler Smith and Sam Mayer rounded out the top five, while Justin Allgaier, Austin Hill, Brandon Jones, Daniel Hemric, and Layne Riggs all finished in the top ten. Especially a very impressive result for the son of former Cup Series driver Scott Riggs. This marked Layne Riggs’ second career start in the series.

Only two of the playoff drivers finished outside the top ten, with Sheldon Creed finishing 15^th and Sammy Smith finishing 17th.

“I’m really disappointed,” Allgaier said after the race. “A great points day and the guys did a great job. We got behind at the beginning, and hard to get it back. … Proud of the effort all day. Hats off to Riley. That was a demonstration right there.”

While John Hunter Nemechek leads the way in points, Allgaier is 21 points above the cutline, Hill is third and 19 points above, and Cole Custer moves into fourth in the standings, now with a 15-point advantage over Chandler Smith. Sam Mayer is back by 16 points, while Sammy Smith is back by 35 and Sheldon Creed back by 41. 

As for the South Point 400 Cup Series race, Kyle Larson won it in dominating fashion as well, leading the most laps and sweeping both stages. However, he had to hold off a fast-charging No. 20 Toyota of Christopher Bell for the win. Larson held off for a 0.082-second win to secure one of the four spots for the Championship race at Phoenix Raceway to give him a chance to win his second championship in three years.

Larson led seven times throughout the race, leading 133 of the 267 laps in the race. While Larson held off other drivers on a restart with 45 laps to go and had to hold off Christopher Bell in the closing laps, he also had a close call as he lost control of his car on the backstretch but quickly recovered and continued on.

“Thankfully, Christopher [Bell] always races extremely clean. It could have gotten crazier than it did coming to the start-finish line, so thank you to him for racing with respect there,” Larson said. “What a job done by my team. Just a great race car.”

“I almost gave it away there in turns 1 and 2. Got sideways and hit the wall and had to fight back from there. I was happy to pull away as much as we did and was hoping that would be enough to maintain, which it was. But I didn’t think they’d be able to get as close as they did at the end. So nerve-wracking.”

Christopher Bell now sits just two points below the cutline to make the championship four, in which a year ago he won at Martinsville to advance to Phoenix. Bell also started from the pole and led for 61 laps.

“I don’t know what else I could have done,” Bell said. “I feel like that was my moment, that was my moment to make the Final Four and didn’t quite capture it. Coming to the checkers there, I knew he was going to be blocking, so I’m like, I’ll try to go high, and he went high. I don’t even know if I had a run to get by him coming to the line. Just wasn’t enough, but a great day. Great day for sure to get those stage points and a second-place finish out of it. Puts us behind by two [points], so we’re not out of it by any means, but would have been nice to lock in.”

Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, and Ross Chastain rounded out the top five in the race, behind Larson and Bell. 

Seven of the eight remaining playoff drivers finished inside the top ten, in which Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Tyler Reddick, and Martin Truex Jr all finished sixth through tenth. At first, Blaney was disqualified from his sixth-place finish after a left-front damper was not meeting the overall specified length. However, the penalty was rescinded on Monday after the race. William Byron leads the points after Larson’s win, as he sits nine points ahead of Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. Behind Bell are Reddick (-16), Blaney (-17), and Buescher (-23) as the Cup Series, along with the Xfinity Series and Truck Series, all head to Homestead-Miami Speedway.