SONOMA — Kyle Larson celebrated NASCAR’s approval of his playoff participation with his third Cup victory of the season, which came on Sunday at his home track.
Larson, who grew up in Elk Grove, 80 miles from Sonoma Raceway, won his second race on the gorgeous wine country road circuit.
It was NASCAR’s 2021 Cup champion’s fifth win on a road track, propelling him to the top of the current series standings.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he got to victory lane after coming out of the pits in eighth after his final service stop of the race with less than 30 laps remaining. He had to drive his way to the front and didn’t regain the lead until eight laps remaining.
“I didn’t know what we were doing as far as strategy. I was just out there banging laps away,” Larson said. “I don’t know, we study all the strategy, but it’s like doing homework: I don’t really know what I’m looking at.
“So I was like, ‘Well, man, these guys are going to have to pit another time, maybe?’ Then we said we had to go race and pass these guys, I got a bit nervous.”
Despite his early-season dominance, it took until Tuesday of this week for NASCAR to grant Larson the waiver he needed to compete in this year’s playoffs because he missed the Coca-Cola 600 last month.
Larson became the fifth driver to attempt to run the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s longest race of the season on the same day, but rain in both Indiana and North Carolina ruined the attempt.
The Indy 500 was delayed four hours by rain, which forced Larson to miss the start of the Coca-Cola 600. By the time he arrived in North Carolina, the race had been stopped for rain there, never resumed and Larson never turned a lap. Because of that, it took NASCAR a week of internal debate to decide if one of its biggest stars would be given the pass required to remain eligible for playoff participation.
His win at Sonoma only showed how foolish NASCAR would have looked had it ruled against the Hendrick Motorsports driver.
“I didn’t see it affecting the majority of the team,” said Gordon, who added Larson and crew chief Cliff Daniels allowed the Hendrick executives to handle communications with NASCAR. “As far as how it trickled down the team, I didn’t see where they were really (bothered). They seem to be business as usual. I think the best medicine in any of those situations is getting back to the racetrack.
“Especially when they got here, home track for Kyle, a track they enjoy racing at, I think that put a lot of that to rest.”
Larson led 19 of the 110 laps and passed defending race winner Martin Truex Jr. with eight laps remaining to uphold the win in his No. 5 Chevrolet. It is his 20th win since joining Hendrick in 2021 which ranks third in the organization behind Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.
Truex was going to finish second in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing but ran out of gas before he reached the finish line. He was scored 27th as a pair of tow trucks followed him to the finish.
That gave second to Michael McDowell in a Ford for Front Row Motorsports. Chris Buescher was third in a Ford for RFK Racing and Chase Elliott of Hendrick was fourth. He was followed by Ross Chastain of Trackhouse, who had last-lap contact with Kyle Busch that dropped Busch from fifth to 17th.
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