Kyle Larson finally wins at Homestead

Kyle Larson has long been a threat to win at Homestead-Miami Speedway, dazzling with his high racing line along the outside wall. However, that often came back to bite him in the end as his strong runs were generally undermined by coming up short or being overshadowed by the championship battle during Homestead’s time as the season finale.

While he has been eliminated from the playoffs, he still locked his #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet into the NASCAR Cup Series Owner’s Championship Round by leading 199 of 267 laps en route to his first win at Homestead. It is his third victory of 2022 after Fontana and Watkins Glen.

“Definitely the best run we’ve had all year long,” said Larson. “We’ve been capable of it I feel like many weekends, we just haven’t quite put it all together. Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) gave a great speech this morning and got us all ready to go and focused and did my best to keep it out of the wall. I got in the wall a few times but I could still make speed doing that.

“Amazing race car. I knew that that last run was going to be short enough where I was going to be in some sort of trouble there, but thankfully A.J. (Allmendinger) and Ross (Chastain) were racing hard behind me.”

It was not all smooth sailing for Larson as highlighted on lap 246, when Tyler Reddick wrecked to bring out a caution. As they came to pit road, Larson spun Martin Truex Jr., who was leading up to the accident, and caused him to nearly collide with his pit crew. Both drivers shared responsibility for the incident.

“My team said he was late turning into his stall, but I don’t know,” explained Larson. “If it was my fault, I’m sorry. I don’t think it was, but it’s hard to see down this pit road. I don’t know if fans and people realise when you’ve got debris all over your windshield, the sun is shining straight in your face, it’s hard to see your stall.”

Truex concurred on the sunlight’s glare reducing visibility, saying “it was definitely a little bit of both of that. It was really hard to see through these windshields right now with the sun like that and all the stuff covering it. I did see my box late for sure, so I slowed down before I turned out of the way of the #5 there. Obviously, partly on me. I didn’t expect to get turned around. Glad nobody got hurt there.”

He is the fifth driver out of title contention to win in the 2022 playoffs, joining Erik Jones (Darlington), Bubba Wallace (Kansas), Chris Buescher (Bristol), and Tyler Reddick (Texas). Larson and Reddick had qualified for the postseason before being eliminated in the previous round, while his and Wallace’s victories assist their cars in the owner points.

Chastain’s runner-up puts him in prime position to make the final round even if he does not win the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville. Conversely, Chase Briscoe crashed on lap 160 and finished last, leaving him at the bottom of the playoff standings and essentially needing a victory to advance.

“The driver just made a mistake. I was really, really loose that run, We were really tight every other run,” Briscoe explained. “That green-flag run, we tried to get really free on the other side of it and just started taking really hard. I was hanging on with everything I had. It felt like I was on ice. Honestly, I wasn’t even running hard. I was trying to just get to the caution. We kept getting freer. I got sideways and had the wheel all the way to the right and ended up head-on into the wall. It is really frustrating to have it be something of my own doing. I am better than to be crashing by myself.

“It is really unfortunate. It makes our job easier next week I guess. We don’t have to worry about points. We got to go to Martinsville and win.”

Allmendinger finished third for his best finish on an oval since a runner-up at Martinsville in 2012. He previously finished fifth at Homestead in 2010.

With Wallace serving a one-race suspension for wrecking Larson at Las Vegas, John Hunter Nemechek filled in the #45 23XI Racing Toyota. After qualifying an impressive fourth, he finished twenty-seventh in his first Cup race since 2020.

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	5	5	Kyle Larson^	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
2	20	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	267	Running
3	10	16	A.J. Allmendinger*	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
4	32	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
5	9	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford	267	Running
6	12	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Running
7	14	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Running
8	16	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	267	Running
9	11	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Running
10	23	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	267	Running
11	2	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Running
12	1	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
13	8	17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	267	Running
14	3	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
15	27	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	267	Running
16	18	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	267	Running
17	13	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	267	Running
18	17	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	267	Running
19	26	2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	267	Running
20	21	21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	267	Running
21	28	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	267	Running
22	6	23	Ty Gibbs*	23XI Racing	Toyota	267	Running
23	31	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	267	Running
24	25	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	266	Running
25	24	48	Noah Gragson*	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	266	Running
26	30	42	Ty Dillon	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	266	Running
27	4	45	John Hunter Nemechek*	23XI Racing	Toyota	266	Running
28	15	31	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	266	Running
29	33	77	Landon Cassill*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	266	Running
30	22	43	Erik Jones	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	264	Running
31	29	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	264	Running
32	34	15	J.J. Yeley*	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	263	Running
33	35	78	B.J. McLeod*	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	262	Running
34	36	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	262	Running
35	7	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	242	Accident
36	19	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	160	Accident

Bold – Currently in playoffs
^ – Currently in owner playoffs
Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points