Kyle Larson held off Tyler Reddick in the closing laps to take the win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Larson dominated the race, leading 181 of the 267 laps. It was a lonely drive for him throughout the day, but a hard charging Reddick forced Larson to drive defensively the final few laps.
Larson took Reddick’s line away on multiple occasions to maintain the lead. A block on the high side and the low side got Larson some separation for the final lap, where he brought it home for the win.
This is the 24th win of Larson’s career, and his first of the season. Hendrick Motorsports has won two of the first three races of the season. Along with that, they have now won the spring race at Vegas for the fourth consecutive season.
“I felt it was gonna time out to where Reddick was running really hard, and getting the tow to catch me at the end. Thankfully I was able to air block him a couple laps and get him tight.”
Reddick was frustrated after failing to take the win.
“Kyle did a really good job, pretty much taking away every option I had to close the gap. I was really good on the bottom, and he just never let me have it.”
It was a clean race for the most part, a refreshing result after two straight races of carnage to open the season. A couple tire issues early in the race served as the main incidents.
Christopher Bell had a right rear tire go down on lap 11, starting what would be a miserable day for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. 17 laps later, the right front wheel on Chris Buescher’s car fell off, sending him hard into the wall.
The race was mostly clean for the remaining laps, aside from spins by Bell and Corey Lajoie.
Three races in, Larson finds himself as the points leader, eight points over Ryan Blaney who finished third in Sunday’s race.
NASCAR will stay out west for race four of the season at Phoenix Raceway. Along with looking to run well, teams will also be looking to learn as much as they can in preparation for the season finale at Phoenix in November.
Tagline: “The Cooldown Lap,” written by Jon Wenger, takes you through the world of motorsports each week. Wenger discusses the recent events in various racing divisions.