KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Kyle Larson has always found it easier to be the hunter than the hunted.
He won’t have much choice in the matter now.
Larson, who won his second NASCAR Cup Series championship last season, capped a dominant performance Sunday at Kansas Speedway by passing Chase Briscoe with seven laps to go and leading the rest of the way. That left the 34-year-old driver of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet to drive to victory lane for a record-tying fourth time at the 1.5-mile oval — and with a padded lead in the Chase standings as he seeks a title repeat.
Larson won the first two stages of Sunday’s race and broke the Kansas Speedway record he already held by leading 235 laps, allowing him to turn the slimmest of leads — a single point over Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin at the start of the day — into a 26-point advantage heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway next weekend for the fifth of 10 races in the postseason.
“Such a good day,” Larson said. “I was going to be happy with second how the race went, but to get the lead, that’s a big deal.”