MARTINSVILLE, Va. — In a season full of opportunities presented and opportunities realized, one more — the biggest of all — is right in front of Kyle Larson and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team.
A muddled Sunday at Martinsville Speedway didn’t make his quest for a third NASCAR Cup Series championship a gimme, and Larson’s struggles kept him from sewing up the crown early. That said, Larson and Co. are that much closer to knitting the title race’s final stitch.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Martinsville
Strategic slip-ups, ill-timed circumstances and short-track snags made for missed opportunities for the rest of his closest pursuers, sending Larson into next Sunday’s season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a 67-point buffer over Christopher Bell and a 70-point gap on Denny Hamlin — the only drivers with a slim mathematical hope of surpassing him. Placing a lap down in ninth was more gritty and methodical than it was triumphant, but it gave Larson the survive-and-advance outcome he needed to keep his challengers at more than an arm’s length.
“The day could have been a lot worse, but yeah, I mean, it’s not locked up either, so there’s still definitely pressure there,” Larson said. “I don’t know if I should feel pressure, but I’m going to throughout the week.”
It’s telling that the second-worst performance of Larson’s otherwise dynamic run through The Chase presented by Mobil 1 was still a top-10 finish. Throughout the regular season, when Hendrick Motorsports slogged through a perceived slump and the defending champ’s losing streak crept closer to and eventually pushed north of 50, Larson expressed confidence that the organization would find its stride when it mattered most. The results so far have backed up that belief.
Larson’s confidence was tested early in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at the historic track. His No. 5 Chevy labored to a 23rd-place result in the first stage, losing a lap to teammate William Byron’s dominant No. 24 car just before the green-checkered flag. No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels issued a mea culpa when a no-stop strategy soured, but a handful of rapid-fire caution periods in Stage 2 landed him on better footing.
“It was difficult to just kind of mentally not get beat down and frustrated and make a not-so-pleasant situation worse,” Larson said. “So yeah, I just kind of had to remind myself that we’ve got a lot of points, let’s just kind of grind our way through it and trust your team, which I had trust that we would get back on the right side of things if we could ever get to the lead lap. Then fortunately we did, and then yeah, just kind of inched our way forward through some strategy, really.”
The opportunities for Bell and Hamlin to cash in never quite materialized. The same Stage 1 strategy kept a fading Hamlin out of the early points, and a pinball collision with Joey Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford sent both Bell and Hamlin spinning on the 214th of 500 laps. For much of the race’s second half, the advances made by Bell and Hamlin that netted each of them top-10 finishes (Hamlin sixth and Bell 10th) were matched nearly step by step by Larson.
“It was pretty simple from there,” Larson said, “and as long as I could see them, I felt comfortable that they were going to have an average day like myself.”
Average was enough Sunday at Martinsville, and even below average — barring a catastrophe — would suffice for Larson’s title hopes in this coming Sunday’s curtain-closer (3 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Even with the temptation to taste the fruits of a championship-caliber season before they ripen for sure, Daniels said he’s not allowing himself or the team to make that leap.
“At this point, I just think it’s going to be very in line for us to stay with the prep that we’ve already put in place,” Daniels said. “There’s so many good things that we’ve built to get us to this point for Homestead that we’ve got to see it through, and we’ve just got to give justice to all the hard work that’s put in by not counting it too early. You’ve still got to put your head down, prepare a good car, and go execute a solid weekend.”
MORE: Cup Series standings | Homestead weekend schedule
That said, Daniels says Homestead had been circled on the calendar ever since it was announced as the host site for this year’s final weekend. Plenty has changed since the 1.5-mile track last hosted the Cup Series in March 2025, but the knack for finding speed in the high line by skimming along the track’s outer wall seems to be an inherent Larson trait.
The suggestion that Larson, Daniels or the team might let up and take an extra-conservative tack to protect their lead, needing just a plus-nine gain next weekend to seal it, might fall into the conventional-wisdom category. Switching up that approach now, though, invites disruption to the standard operating procedures.
Daniels says altering that game plan would be a bigger risk, given the stakes and the timing. After all, there’s one more opportunity ahead.
“I learned a lesson a long time ago with Kyle that if we do anything to prepare to run 90%, you’re down on grip or you’re not as sharp as you need to be, and his comfort zone — especially at a place like Homestead or a place like Darlington, where you know on paper it’s worn-out pavement and you’ve got to take care of your tires and take care of your stuff — his comfort zone is still going 10 out of 10,” Daniels said. “So we’ve got to get everything we can for car prep, car potential, get the setup dialed in, and I don’t expect him to be off the wall at all. He’s going to be ripping the boards and be really fast doing it, and you know that’s what makes him so special. He’ll be comfortable in that zone.”