Kyle Larson came roaring around the outside of Chris Buescher on the final lap at Kansas Speedway, banging doors with him all the way to the finish line, only to be told by his team over the radio that everything he had given was not quite enough.
It wasn’t until Larson was in Turn 3 of the cool-down lap that he saw his spotter, Tyler Monn, dancing high above the track.
In the closest finish in NASCAR history, one that only became official with a grainy black-and-white photo at the line, the No. 5 car was declared the winner by a thousandth of a second — every bit as close as the Kentucky Derby a day earlier, and an even more dramatic finish than the three-at-the-line conclusion to the Cup Series race at Atlanta earlier this season.
Not so awesome for Buescher’s team, which had begun celebrating before the result became official. His crew chief, Scott Graves, asked to meet with NASCAR officials in their hauler. Shown the finish-line photo, he accepted the outcome.
The edge-of-your-seat finish came after a caution for Kyle Busch’s spin forced the green-white-checkered finish. Larson had pulled behind Buescher on the backstretch of the last lap, then came around him in the final corner. To the naked eye, Buescher looked as if he had edged ahead, and even Larson had started to congratulate his team on a strong second-place run.
A few minutes later, he was doing a celebratory burnout on the front stretch.
It was a brilliant start to a busy month of May for Larson, who will attempt to run the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day Memorial Day weekend. The win was his second of the season for Hendrick Motorsports, and it gave him a bit of retribution after finishing second to Denny Hamlin last week at Dover and in the spring race at Kansas a year ago.
Martin Truex Jr. finished fourth Sunday and Hamlin, who had the lead on the final restart, faded back to fifth place.
There were no cautions other than for stage breaks until Jimmie Johnson wrecked with 91 laps to go. The seven-time champion, back in the No. 84 for the second consecutive week, was hit from behind by Corey LaJoie after he had checked up.
The yellow flags then came in quickly: Hamlin made contact with Austin Cindric, sending the No. 2 into a wreck that spun out Bubba Wallace and McDowell. Harrison Burton wrecked on the restart, then Joey Logano did on the next one.
The series heads to Darlington next for its annual throwback weekend.
