Kyle Larson, who qualified third on Saturday, maintained a top-five position until lap 42 just as a caution for lightning waved over the superspeedway. Once the lightning hold was lifted, Larson restarted fifth following a four-tire stop in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. When another caution waved on lap 62, Larson had dropped to eighth. But he was able to move up to sixth before stage one ended at lap 90.
At the stage break, Larson dropped five positions for the restart after the team had issues with the left-rear tire change. The Elk Grove, California, native battled to remain in the top 15 before a speeding penalty on pit road under caution at lap 119 caused him to restart at the tail end of the field. Larson was moving his way back through the pack before another red flag waved for lightning in the area. Once the race restarted, the 29-year-old driver began climbing up the scoring pylon. When stage two ended at lap 185, Larson was running sixth.
Following a four-tire pit stop at the end of stage two, Larson dropped to eighth for the restart but worked his way back up to fifth by lap 207 of the 300-lap event. Staying out under the eighth caution, the defending Nashville Superspeedway winner restarted third on lap 248. But when a round of green-flag stops began, Larson hit pit road for service at lap 252. Unfortunately, a caution waved before all green-flag stops were completed trapping the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion one lap down to the leaders. When the leaders pitted under caution, Larson was able to “wave around” onto the lead lap and restarted 24th on lap 262. When the race went back green, he quickly climbed up the leaderboard and was scored ninth when a caution waved with seven laps to go. Larson stayed out and gained five spots when others pitted and drove his No. 5 entry to a fourth-place finish when the checkered flag waved at lap 300.
QUOTING KYLE LARSON:
“It was definitely better once the sun went down. We didn’t have a lot of things work out for us there as we got caught a lap down and we had to take the wave around and drive from twenty-something to 10th there before the last caution. We stayed out and netted out a top-five. So proud of my No. 5 HendrickCars.com team and proud of Chase Elliott, too. That’s great for Hendrick Motorsports and everybody there. Everybody has been working hard and trying to figure out how to go faster and they were definitely the best of the four of us all weekend.?Cool to see that he closed it out.”
NEXT RACE:
Larson and the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team will head to Wisconsin’s Road America for 250 miles of road-course racing. The 62-lap race takes place Sunday, July, 3 at 3 p.m. ET and will be broadcast live on USA.
AdChoices