Minutes after Kyle Larson crossed the finish line to complete the most dominant NASCAR Cup Series victory in Hendrick Motorsports history, the No. 5 Chevrolet team rushed the driver’s 9-year-old son to the winning ride.
Owen Larson was placed on the window, half in the car, half out, as his dad drove a victory lap around Bristol Motor Speedway with his son holding the No. 1 finger in the air. He later joined his dad atop the car during Saturday night’s victory lane celebration.
“We had a little boys’ weekend here this weekend,” said Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion. “We’ll bring some hardware home tonight, too.”
In his fifth win of the 2024 season, Larson dominated the first elimination event of the 10-race playoffs by leading all but 38 of the 500 laps at the Tennessee short track — the most laps led ever in a race by a Hendrick driver. It easily moved him into the second three-race round of the playoffs, while fellow former NASCAR champs Brad Keselowski of RFK Racing and Martin Truex Jr. of Joe Gibbs Racing were eliminated, along with JGR’s Ty Gibbs and Wood Brothers Racing’s Harrison Burton, as the 16-driver postseason field shrank to its final dozen.
“I’ve had a lot of good cars since I’ve come to Hendrick Motorsports, but man, that was just great execution all weekend by the team,” said Larson, who started on the front row alongside pole-sitter and Hendrick teammate Alex Bowman. “We dominate a lot of races but we might not close them all out, so it feels really good to close one out here.”
Denny Hamlin, Truex, Keselowski and Burton were all below the cutline and facing elimination entering Saturday night. Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner with four career wins at Bristol, was never really worried and finished fourth in the race.
“My aspiration was winning,” said Hamlin, who qualified eighth on Friday. “It’s as good as what we’ve been here the last couple times. It’s all offense from this point forward.”
Burton, who used a surprise win at Daytona International Speedway last month to qualify for the playoffs in the final few weeks before he loses his seat at Wood Brothers, was doubtful to recover enough to advance and finished 35th in the race, one spot worse than he started. Keselowski, the 2012 season champ, and Truex, the 2017 season champ, had a better shot at salvaging their postseason bids, but both came up empty.
Truex was penalized for speeding on pit road, taking him out of contention to advance after qualifying fourth for the race, and Keselowski just didn’t have the pace after qualifying 23rd. Gibbs was also penalized for speeding, leading to JGR having half of its four cars eliminated from the playoffs.
“That was just unfortunate there,” said Gibbs, who finished 15th. “Speeding penalty is on me. It’s my fault.”
Keselowski finished 26th and lamented the lack of speed in his Ford.
“Didn’t have the pace we wanted. We ran as hard as we could, there just wasn’t anything there,” he said. “Just got to be faster.”
Truex is retiring from full-time racing at the end of the season.
“That kind of screws up your whole season,” Truex said of the speeding penalty. “It’s on me. It was my mistake. Just really sad for my guys. We had a really good car. I hate I screwed it up. Would have at least tried to see what we could do.”
Larson, meanwhile, led 462 of 500 laps, the most by a Cup Series driver since Cale Yarborough led 495 laps in 1977.
As for setting the Hendrick record, it’s impressive considering the team has fielded cars for NASCAR Hall of Fame drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Terry Labonte among others.
“Pretty cool to get my name on another record at Hendrick Motorsports,” Larson said.
Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez, who finished four laps down in 31st, squeezed out the final spot in the second round of the playoffs by 11 points over Gibbs.
Also advancing were Hendrick’s Chase Elliott, who finished second in the race, JGR’s Christopher Bell, who finished fifth, regular-season champion Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing, Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe, Hendrick’s William Byron, Penske’s Austin Cindric and Hendrick’s Alex Bowman.
Larson and Elliott were followed across the finish line by Bubba Wallace in a 23XI Racing Toyota, Hamlin and Bell. Blaney’s sixth-place showing was the best for a Ford driver.
The second round of the playoffs has races at Kansas Speedway (Sept. 29), Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway (Oct. 6) and Charlotte Motor Speedway’s roval course (Oct. 13). After that, the field will again be reduced by four drivers.