Kyle Larson held off Ross Chastain to cap a dominant showing at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, after leading 199 of the 267 laps over the 1-1/2 mile course.
It was Larson’s third win of the season, coming two weeks after the reigning Cup champion was eliminated from this year’s playoffs — and a week after he was intentionally spun by Bubba Wallace in an act of retaliation at Las Vegas.
Even though Larson can’t win the title, his Hendrick Motorsports team still can — now having clinched a spot in the field that will decide the owners’ championship in Phoenix.
It wasn’t exactly close at the end; Larson beat Chastain to the line by 1.261 seconds. Chastain could have clinched a berth in the winner-take-all Phoenix race for the title if he had won at Homestead.
The four-car field for the drivers’ title race will be finalized next week in Martinsville, with seven drivers heading there to compete for three remaining spots. Only Joey Logano, through his win at Las Vegas last week, has his berth clinched.
Denny Hamlin is on the wrong side of the cutline going into Martinsville. Chastain is second, Chase Elliott is third and William Byron — the polesitter for Sunday — is fourth.
Hamlin is five points back of Byron, followed by Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe in eighth.
Among the playoff drivers, after runner-up Chastain, Hamlin was seventh, Bell 11th, Byron 12th, Elliott 14th, Blaney 17th, Logano 18th and Briscoe 36th in the 36-car field.
Martin Truex Jr., who led the field for 28 laps, was headed to the pits late in the race when a caution flag came out — and found trouble as he got there. Larson tapped the back of Truex’s car and Truex wound up spinning 180 degrees and ending up in his stall, but with the front of his car facing the wrong direction. It also seemed possible, given where Truex was, that he might have missed his stall entirely as the setting sun starting casting serious shadow over much of Homestead.
Truex came back to finish sixth and raced Hamlin — his teammate — hard for late position, costing Hamlin valuable playoff points.
Briscoe — a past winner at Homestead in the trucks and Xfinity series — came into Sunday looking for a big showing that would help his playoff hopes, or even a victory that would clinch his spot in the finale.
He didn’t make it out of Stage 2. Briscoe completed only 160 laps, going into the wall and damaging his car beyond repair.
NASCAR’s next-to-last race of the season is at Martinsville, with the final playoff spots up for grabs before the finale at Phoenix. Byron held off Logano in overtime to win at Martinsville back in early April.
