Kyle Larson falls short of keeping hopes of Homestead sweep alive in Xfinity race

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- With eight laps to go, Kyle Larson was in his own zip code at Homestead-Miami Speedway, 16 seconds ahead of second-place runner Sam Mayer in the late stages of Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race. A caution changed everything -- as did the overtime restart that followed. Ultimately, Larson was relegated to a fourth-place finish in Saturday's Hard Rock Bet 300 after an overambitious push from Mayer stymied Larson's momentum on the re-fire, ending any hopes of Larson's bid to sweep the weekend's Craftsman Truck Series, Xfinity Series and Cup Series events at Homestead. MORE: Race results | At-track photos: Homestead Taylor Gray spun exiting Turn 4 on Lap 193, necessitating the yellow flag at a time when just five cars were on the lead lap -- Larson, Mayer, Austin Hill, Justin Allgaier and Sheldon Creed. After pit stops, Larson maintained his advantage in the lead, but erased was his half-lap lead over Mayer. Preparing for the ensuing two-lap shootout, Larson opted to lead from the inside lane and Mayer chose to follow suit. Hill leapt from third to the front row while Allgaier took the outside of Row 2. Approaching the restart zone, Larson waited a beat to return to full song; Mayer, behind him, did not. "Lagged back and just slammed the [expletive] out of me and had my rear tires off the ground," Larson said. The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion, Larson said he likely would have tried the same move Mayer made if in his position, but the shove to Larson's bumper was too hard, forcing Larson's rear tires to spin and lose traction as he tried to correct his No. 17 Chevrolet down the frontstretch. "He was playing games on that last restart, which he was all day whenever he was leading," Mayer, the Haas Factory Team driver, said. "But that's what you do at this level, and I just wasn't ready for him to not go and yeah, just mistimed it, unfortunately. Got him squirrely, choked our entire lane up, let all those guys get going on the outside." Indeed, Hill instead scurried to the lead with Allgaier hot in pursuit -- and one circuit later, Allgaier surged ahead of Hill for the victory on the final lap in Turns 1 and 2. Larson's pursuit of a tripleheader weekend sweep will have to wait until the April 13 weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. The feat has been accomplished just twice before, both times by Kyle Busch at Bristol. The sting of missing out on his opportunity Saturday was obvious. "Disappointed, probably like I have been here probably seven, eight times or more," Larson said. "I wish it would have stayed green. For some reason, nobody can keep it straight at the end of the races that I'm leading. But yeah, I thought we'd still have a good shot to win. I think had I gotten a normal launch on the frontstretch, I would have been fine. But yeah, he just ran right into the back of me."