Larson Comes in Clutch in California

Photo Credit to Meg Oliphant/Getty Images for NASCAR

NASCAR

Defending Champion Kyle Larson Picks Up Auto Club Win

FONTANA, Calif. – Defending Cup Series champion and California native Kyle Larson went to victory lane at Auto Club Speedway. While Larson was a favorite heading into Sunday, the 5 did not assert himself as a threat until the closing laps. After a record-tying 12 cautions, Larson picked up another win at one of his home tracks.

Reddick Untouchable For Most of Day

While one California kid with dirt track roots won, another one was the star of the show. Tyler Reddick quickly took command and hardly looked back. Not only did the 8 win both Stages, his pit crew was on fire as well. Reddick left pit road with the lead seven times Sunday, only proving that the Richard Childress Racing team were the ones to beat. However, Reddick’s career-best race came to a crashing end when he lost a tire on lap 153.

This wreck also claimed William Byron, who was stout all day long. While Reddick recovered to finish 24th, the 24 would DNF in 34th.

Not long after the Reddick crash, another incident triggered a caution. Brad Keselowski spun on a restart, right into the paths of Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, and Harrison Burton.

Slowly and methodically, Kyle Larson worked his way forward to be leading with 22 laps left. However, Larson would unintentionally cause some infighting at Hendrick Motorsports, when he shoved teammate Chase Elliott into the wall. Elliott had pounded the fence earlier while leading, and had rebounded all the way to be in contention again.

Larson would say over the radio that he did not know Elliott was to his outside. Regardless, driver 9 was none too pleased with how his teammate raced him.

Wild Finish and Larson’s Winning Reaction

With nine laps to go, Elliott spun and brought out another caution. This allowed the field one more shot at Larson, as Joey Logano and Daniel Suarez took him three-wide for the top spot. For about half a lap, Suarez was clear of the 5, but Larson motored back by him to take the victory.

“Always fun here to win in the home state,” Larson said. “Hard work all weekend there, didn’t feel great in practice yesterday. Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) and everybody made some great adjustments overnight, and the car handled a lot better. There was definitely some guys that were quicker than us, but they had their misfortunes. Just kept our heads it in all day, a long race. Restarts were crazy, the whole runs were crazy. Definitely wild, but cool to get a win here in California, hope we get on a little streak.”

Top 10 finishers from Auto Club were Larson, Austin Dillon, Erik Jones, Daniel Suarez, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Daniel Hemric, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Kurt Busch had to start last and patiently drove his No. 45 Toyota to seventh. In addition, Daniel Hemric spent most of the day multiple laps down, but battled back to ninth.

With the Auto Club win, Larson is back in the Playoffs once again, ready to defend his 2021 championship. This may once again be the first of very many wins for the Hendrick 5 team this year, as they’re firing on all cylinders. This marks career win number 17 for Larson, and his 11th for Team Hendrick.

The NASCAR Cup Series will be back in action next week from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The green flag will fly from Sin City Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. The Pennzoil 400 was Larson’s first win a year ago, can it be another driver’s first checkered flag of 2022?

Written by Peter Stratta

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Photo Credit to Meg Oliphant/Getty Images for NASCAR