Pair of aces: Larson, Hamlin lay cards on the table in 1.5-mile Vegas showdown

Two of NASCAR's biggest aces arrive for a wild weekend ahead in Las Vegas -- holding very different hands. Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson currently has the firmest grip on the standings and more momentum than anybody in the sport, riding high after perhaps the most dominant performance of anyone this season. But his fellow title contender in Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin has the clear best 1.5-mile-track resume in the field — and two consecutive wins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday's South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Just 26 points separate them atop the Cup Series standings entering Race No. 5 of The Chase presented by Mobil 1. But will that deficit grow or shrink -- or flip -- on Sunday? It's truly a heads-or-tails scenario between them, and it almost feels like a given they'll finish 1-2 in some order. RELATED: Kansas results | Cup Series standings If the Kansas City stomping we saw out of the No. 5 Chevrolet on Sunday was Larson's emphatic statement that he's fully "back," Las Vegas offers Hamlin a particularly inviting place to respond in grand fashion. The defending and two-time champ turned a one-point lead over Hamlin entering Kansas into a 26-point advantage by taking literally everything available to him: both stages, the fastest-lap point and the race win for the first maximum 76-point day under the current scoring system. Every other Chase driver lost ground to him. (He didn't get a chance to win the pole with qualifying washed away, but we can probably guess how that would've gone.) It continued a remarkable opening stretch for the 34-time Cup winner, as Larson has finished fifth, first, second and first through four Chase races, producing a 2.25 average finish -- the best through the first four races of any postseason since The Chase debuted in 2004. BY THE NUMBERS: Hamlin vs. Larson And yet, if there is a driver-track combination capable of making that 26-point cushion look considerably smaller by Sunday night, Hamlin at Las Vegas makes a convincing case. Hamlin knows the opportunity is there for the taking. "We just gotta, I mean, do what we've been doing in Las Vegas," Hamlin said after Kansas Speedway. "That's a track that, you know, I feel like I've got a great feel for, especially in the race, and so we'll see how it all plays out." What Hamlin has been doing on NASCAR's traditional 1.5-mile tracks extends well beyond Vegas, too. His finishes in the six such races this season echo the elite level Larson has started The Chase with: No. 11 has secured first, fourth, second, third, third and third at these intermediates. Hamlin is the only driver to finish in the top five in all six, and his 2.67 average finish is tied with Jimmie Johnson in 2005 and Bobby Labonte in 1999 for the best ever through the first six 1.5-mile races of a season. He has also spent 83% of the laps run on those tracks inside the top five. He just lives there. His eight-race streak of top-five finishes on 1.5-mile tracks, dating to Kansas last fall, is the longest active streak and matches Johnson's 2004-05 run among some of the best such stretches in NASCAR history. Whether or not he winds up with the Bill France Cup in November, Hamlin has certainly put together a championship-capable season to this point. [table id=845 /] The table really makes Hamlin's consistency impossible to miss, while making Larson's 13.8 average finish look almost bizarre beside his current form. Two 34th-place results, at Texas and Chicagoland, have punished Larson's average considerably. Remove those clear outliers and his other four 1.5-mile finishes this season are seventh, second, fifth and first -- probably a much more accurate picture of where he's at on these tracks. Recent history would suggest so, anyway. And while Hamlin owns the overwhelming edge in finishing consistency, Larson has actually led more laps on 1.5-mile tracks this year: 412 to Hamlin's 393. Christopher Bell is a distant third among Chase drivers with 145 (but could be the one to break up the party this weekend, if anybody can). That neatly captures the statistical tug-of-war between the championship's top two. Hamlin has been remarkably steady from the jump. Larson and Co. have taken time to get there along the winding path of volatility -- yet appear to be locked in at the moment -- but when the No. 5 hits, it tends to hit hard. Kansas was the latest example. Hamlin finished third and still watched Larson take 25 points out of him in one afternoon. Larson knows just how quickly the reverse could happen. "I only have a 26, I think, point lead on Denny," Larson said after Kansas. "That could be swallowed up in a hurry. I scored 76 points today. So, Denny could go have a max points day next week, and I could blow an engine, like Noah (Gragson) did in the first stage, and I'm down 70-some points right there." The overall 1.5-mile stats still favor Hamlin, but his best argument that such a swing is possible might simply be the venue. He has won the last two Cup races at Las Vegas and can become only the second driver to win three straight there, joining Johnson, who accomplished the feat from 2005-07. This spring, Hamlin overcame a speeding penalty at the first stage break, took the lead on the final restart and won while scoring 70 points. Larson finished seventh. But calling Las Vegas solely Hamlin's race to lose would be ignoring the guy across the table from him. Larson has three Cup wins at the track of his own, and his 881 laps led are already the most in Las Vegas history. His 8.9 average finish is also the best among drivers with more than four starts, and he has finished first or second in six of his 11 Vegas starts since joining Hendrick Motorsports. In the Next Gen era alone, Larson has led 657 laps at Las Vegas -- nearly three times Hamlin's 232. So while Hamlin owns the broader 1.5-mile argument in 2026, Larson has more than enough Vegas-specific evidence to push back. [caption id="attachment_527394" align="aligncenter" width="1300"]Meg Oliphant | Getty Images[/caption] There is also reason to believe Kansas will not necessarily translate directly to Sunday. Larson's biggest advantage there came early in runs, when the No. 5 could create separation before Hamlin's car began to come back to him. But Vegas presents a significantly more complicated challenge for drivers. "It's a lot different track," Hamlin said. "You got to have something for the bumps, and so I feel like we struck a good balance of that over the years, and it's taken many years to get us to that point, but hopefully we've still got the speed that we had there in the spring." The numbers, though, obviously suggest both drivers should have plenty of it. MORE: Chase Report: Where we stand before Las Vegas Larson enters Las Vegas with control of a Chase that has already spun itself around a handful of times with six-plus weeks to go. Hamlin arrives with the strongest 1.5-mile record in the field and back-to-back wins at the track. A pair of aces in Sin City, 26 markers apart. Time to show the cards.