Kyle Larson Dominates to Win Bristol Night Race

It isn’t every day you see a dominating performance such as leading 462 of 500 laps in a race at Bristol. However, that’s exactly what took place in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, as Kyle Larson cruised to the win with a 7.088-second lead over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott. 

Larson would sweep both stages in the process and secure his spot for the Round of 12 with that win. While it was a good night for Kyle Larson, it wasn’t for the likes of Harrison Burton, Brad Keselowski, Ty Gibbs, and Martin Truex Jr., as they were eliminated from the playoffs at the conclusion of the Saturday Night race.  Larson also set a record for laps led in a single race by a Hendrick Motorsports driver, as he has now led 1,351 laps at Bristol, his most at a single track. 

“Man, that was just great execution all weekend by the team,” Larson said. “Practiced good. You’ve got to qualify good; we did that. Yeah, just had a great car. Thanks to the whole 5 team. They’re the best in the business.”

“We dominate a lot of races, but we might not close them all out, so it feels really good to close one out here in this HendrickCars.com Chevy. We’ve got (team owner) Rick Hendrick here today, too. He hasn’t been to many races this year… Just a phenomenal car, could kind of manage my stuff and then really pass some cars there at the end.”

Joe Gibbs now only has two of their four drivers in the playoffs after Bristol, as both Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex Jr. were handed speeding penalties that would ultimately cost them a chance at advancing. Gibbs would finish 15^th and would lose the final position from Chase Briscoe and Daniel Suarez.

“Speeding penalty is on me,” Gibbs said. “You run the lights so close … it’s my fault. Unfortunate.”

Truex was 14 points below the cut-line, but he was running well for most of the race. He finished fourth in the first stage and second in the second stage. But like Gibbs, Truex was also hit with a speeding penalty that would place him 24^th in the race. 

“We did good in the first two stages — we got a lot of points,” said Truex, who will retire from full-time Cup racing at the end of the season. “I guess we would have had to run second or third to make it through. Who knows if we would have been able to? I wish we could have seen if we could have done that.

“I’m just gutted for my team. We worked so hard this week. We all put in a lot all season long, and in the last three weeks, just snake-bit. Can’t do anything right … .09 mph (over the pit road speed limit) hurts really bad to take the chance away to know if we even could have done it. I don’t know if we could have run second … maybe. We were close to it all day, but in the end, it didn’t matter. I feel terrible for my guys.”

Denny Hamlin was in danger of being eliminated, as he entered just six points below the cut-line, but he was able to maintain a solid run to help him advance to the round of 12. 

“My aspirations were to win it, but it looked like the 5 (Larson) there was better than all of us,” Hamlin said. “Solid car. I thought we were really good towards the middle of the stages, and then at the end, got too loose and couldn’t hang onto what we had.

“Overall, top-five day, good stage points, kind of in the mix, just not really as good as we’ve been here the last few times. But overall, I want to thank this whole FedEx Toyota team for giving me something I can move on with.”

Daniel Suarez finished 31st, 3 laps down, but he was able to use the points from Atlanta and Watkins Glen to help him have just enough to advance to the Round of 12.

“It was a struggle,” Suárez said after the race. “Since yesterday when we unloaded the car for first practice, we just didn’t have the speed. As you know, with a short amount of practice, qualifying, and going to the race, if you don’t have speed out of the trailer, it’s very, very difficult to bring it back to speed.

“We made it better, but it wasn’t good enough. We were running 30th, 28th, and 32nd all night long, and that’s what we had. Luckily, we had a great Atlanta (a runner-up finish), decent Watkins Glen after a broken wheel, and we were able to build a cushion, and we definitely used every single point out of that cushion.”

Alex Bowman did score the pole for the race, but after Kyle Larson took the lead around Lap 33, there was no looking back. Bubba Wallace finished third, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell finished the top five. While Ryan Blaney, Ryan Preece, Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman, and Ross Chastain rounded out the top ten.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads next to Kansas Speedway to kick off the Round of 12.