Kyle Larson missed the Coca-Cola 600 back on Memorial Day, but he made up for it Sunday in his return to Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver capped the NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 12 playoff finale with deft left and right turns Sunday afternoon, conquering the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course for the second time to win the Bank of America ROVAL 400 in Concord, N.C.
In the final restart, Larson pulled away from Christopher Bell and slickly moved his Chevrolet around the 2.32-mile road layout for his series-high sixth win of 2024, topping Bell’s No. 20 Toyota by 1.511 seconds.
“It’s the first time in my playoff career that I’ve not been close to the cut line, so it’s good to have a stress-free weekend,” said Larson, who led 62 laps. “I think it’s the first time I’ve been here without crashing other than the first time I won (in 2021).”
William Byron, Austin Cindric and Chase Elliott completed the top five, but the biggest moment in the elimination race was Tyler Reddick overcoming a double-digit deficit over the final 26 circuits and preventing Joey Logano from any chance of becoming a three-time Cup champion.
Driving the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota for team owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, Reddick, the regular-season champ, had multiple repairs on his Camry and finished 11th to lock in a spot in the championship standings.
“This thing was absolutely destroyed — hats off to (my team),” said Reddick, who waited on pit road while his team toiled after contact with Hamlin’s No. 11. “We just kept working on it and made it a lot better for Stage 3.”
Added Logano: “I was just praying for a caution to mix it up.”
Joining the No. 22 Ford driver in elimination were Team Penske teammate Cindric, Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe.
However, hours later following post-race inspection, the No. 48 Chevrolet of Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman was disqualified for being too light and Bowman was assessed a 38th-place finish.
The race’s 18th-place finisher who was fifth in the standings, Bowman failed to advance with the last-place showing. Logano, the first driver below the cut line, was then moved up into the Round of 8 field.
On a beautiful afternoon outside North Carolina’s Queen City, first-time Cup polesitter Shane van Gisbergen brought down the 38-car field for the final road-course race of 2024 and the field-setter for the Round of 8, leading until Lap 22.
The 109-lap race went caution-free until the completion of Stage 1 when Reddick secured the segment win. Logano, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Larson rounded out the top five.
However, Reddick’s outlook soured when he banged into team owner Hamlin in Turn 7 on Lap 31 as Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet spun, sending Reddick’s car to pit road for service.
In a must-win scenario entering the Roval race, last-place title contender Briscoe, who welcomed the birth of his twins earlier in the week, lost a tire on his No. 14 Ford to bring out the first caution for incident.
In the latter portion of Stage 2, the racing intensified as drivers leaned on each other to gain positions while Larson created a gap on Bell. Brad Keselowski and Ross Chastain were both sent spinning in minor incidents that kept the race under green.
Larson pitted from the point with two laps remaining, and Bowman scored his first road-course stage win over AJ Allmendinger, Logano, Elliott and Bubba Wallace. Logano picked up 18 bonus points in the stages.
Meanwhile, Briscoe retired his car after 43 laps in 37th, marking his elimination from title contention, while Suarez brought his No. 99 Chevrolet to pit road with brake problems during the fourth caution.
–Field Level Media
