Okay… So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Kyle Larson delivered an absolutely brutal ass-kicking at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion was able to pull one over on the NASCAR Xfinity Series field on Saturday, bringing his No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team to Victory Lane in a win that was basically uncontested.
Larson, who entered the weekend looking to accomplish the Bristol tripleheader sweep, led a race-high 275 laps at the 0.533-mile short track, leaving the rest of the field in his dust and winning the SciAps 300.
There were times during the middle portion of Saturday’s event that Larson, a full-time driver in the NASCAR Cup Series, had an advantage of more than seven seconds over the second-place driver, which at a track that produces 15-second laps, is nearly half of a racetrack.
While the gap didn’t necessarily grow to those astronomical margins during the race’s final stage, Larson wasn’t anywhere close to challenged, coming across the start-finish line with a 2.054-second advantage over runner-up Carson Kvapil.
“It’s awesome,” Larson said after the race. “I wish I could have won last night, but just came up a little bit short, but cool to get a win this weekend for Jon [Edwards] and everybody who’s been a part of his life.”
Larson finished second in Friday’s Weather Guard Truck Race to Chandler Smith, ending his chances at becoming the second driver in history to do a NASCAR National Series sweep.
“We’ve got one more tomorrow, there would be nothing then to cap it off with a Cup win for Jon and all of Hendrick Motorsports, and yeah, have a great car for tomorrow, just got to execute like we did today.”
RACE RESULTS: SciAps 300 at Bristol
NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie Carson Kvapil brought home a second-place result for JR Motorsports in the No. 1 Chevrolet, with his two teammates, Justin Allgaier and Sammy Smith, behind him in third and fourth place.
Brandon Jones, who collected his first win in more than two years last weekend at Darlington, rounded out the top five, putting together another solid run for the No. 20 Toyota GR Supra team for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Jesse Love, set to make his NASCAR Cup Series debut on Sunday, finished sixth, with Ryan Sieg, Corey Heim, Christian Eckes, and Dean Thompson completing the top 10 finishers in Saturday’s 300-lap contest from Bristol Motor Speedway.
Only 12 drivers managed to finish the event on the lead-lap, back to Connor Zilisch, who sustained some significant damage to the rear-end of his No. 88 Chevrolet in a stackup with William Sawalich.
However, that wasn’t the most significant crash of the afternoon. On Lap 77, Sheldon Creed spun around after contact from Dean Thompson, but in the aftermath, was slammed into by Dash4Cash driver Brennan Poole, whose right side was torn off the No. 44 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet.
Leaving Bristol, the NASCAR Xfinity Series is gearing up for NASCAR’s return to Rockingham Speedway, where both the Xfinity and Truck Series will compete, along with the ARCA Menards Series East.
Justin Allgaier leaves Bristol with an 83-point advantage over second-place Sam Mayer, further expanding upon an already unbelievable advantage heading into Easter Weekend. Jesse Love, Austin Hill, and Connor Zilisch round out the top five.
Rockingham Speedway, a historic racetrack located in North Carolina, will host the series next weekend, with coverage of the Saturday, April 19 event being at 4:00 PM ET on The CW, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
