And then there were three.
Standings leader Kyle Larson didn’t produce a stellar performance in Martinsville Speedway’s Xfinity 500, but neither did his challengers for this year’s championship.
Larson never led in the race won by Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron and at one point he was a lap down, but he fought back to a ninth-place finish to roll into the season-finale at Homestead with a 67-point lead over second place Christopher Bell, who placed 10th. Denny Hamlin, who finished sixth, dropped to third in the standings with a 70-point deficit to Larson. Chase Briscoe was eliminated from the championship fight with his 14th-place finish in Sunday’s race. He now trails Larson by 84 points. The most points a driver can earn in a race is 76.
“It was a difficult race,” Larson said. “The first Stage got away with us on strategy. I assumed we were just kind of playing off the No. 11 (Denny Hamlin). The second half of the run didn’t go like we needed it to. We could have used a caution at some point to save us, but, unfortunately, it went green the whole way and we got ate up. I was just hanging on.
“Fortunately, we got back on the lead lap in the second Stage, and we just kind of had to fight it out from there. It was just hard to pass. I tried some runs to pass and beat my tires up. Other runs, I tried to save and it was just kind of net-whatever. It was just a bummer day.”
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Still, Larson said that going to Homestead with a 67-point advantage gave him a “sense of relief.”
“I didn’t lose as many points as I was expecting to today, so I’m happy with that,” Larson said.
Bell said he got tricked into thinking he was better than he was.
“My team, Adam (Stevens, crew chief), did a great strategy call there in Stage one to pit and got us a bunch of track position,” Bell said. “On the Stage 2 start, I felt like I was pretty good. Adam came on the radio and said that William (Byron) was running part throttle. I’m at 100 percent; he’s at 80 percent. I was pretty close on the short run, then the long run I fell off. All-in-all, 10th is probably about where we stacked up. It was really a hectic day.”
Hamlin said his problem in the race came down to the team’s decision to run a no-stop strategy in the 130-lap first Stage.
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Denny Hamlin.
“Lost all of our track position there,” a dejected Hamlin said.
“When we got to the back, then you got all those incidents, the cautions, then obviously the 22 (Joey Logano) got the 20 (Christopher Bell), and the 20 got into us. It’s racing. I guess. You’re going to have that. Once we lost our track position … it’s hard to drive back to the front.”
Hamlin noted they failed to capitalize on Larson not acquiring any Stage points in the event.
“It was just a lot of unfortunate timing of some things,” Hamlin continued. “For us, this weekend was about everything to gain, nothing to lose. We just didn’t gain enough to make it realistic.”
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association’s sports feature category. During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication’s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.