Virginia is for Racing Lovers 150
Richmond Raceway
AUSTIN, Texas — When the NASCAR Cup Series took to the 3.41-mile Circuit of The Americas road course Saturday morning for practice, Ty Gibbs controlled most categories. His No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was the first car to hit the track and sat atop the scoring pylon throughout the extended session until the waning seconds when William Byron jumped to first.
Byron nipped Gibbs in qualifying, and the sophomore driver would start from third position in the 68-lap race. The No. 54 team still believed it was going to be a contender in the outcome of Sunday’s race.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos
Gibbs raced inside the top five for the extent of the opening stage before his crew chief Chris Gayle called him to pit road from second position, coming to two laps remaining in the stage. With the bulk of the field flipping the stage, Gibbs still earned three stage points by finishing eighth.
Seeing how the race was playing out, Gibbs was called to pit road again late in the second stage, giving up valuable stage points to be in contention for the win in the final stage. Gibbs placed 11th in Stage 2, missing out on stage points by the slimmest of margins.
Throughout the final stage, Gibbs was just a tick off from Byron’s lightning pace. Christopher Bell made a late rally to pass the No. 54 car within the final five laps of the race for second position. Gibbs held on to third at the checkered flag, tying the best finish of his career (Phoenix Raceway, two weeks ago).
It was a solid showing for Gibbs, who’s currently on a streak of five straight top-10 finishes, the longest streak of his Cup career.
“We track these things we call strong performances, right? Which are top fives, leading laps and getting stage points and leading in the last part of the race,” Gayle said after the race. “This was another one for us. We honestly felt like we had a shot to win today. We needed to be a tiny bit better car-wise to pull it off, and you need to flip position and get to the lead, and I think we would have been in an OK spot.
“Long runs, we were better. Short runs, we weren’t quite good enough. It was trading off that. We got the long run but still didn’t quite get there. It’s a good day. Good to be disappointed with a third.”
The frustration was apparent on Gibbs’ face following the event. All that matters to him currently is winning his first Cup race as he remains winless through 57 attempts.
“It was good, but the most important is a win, and that’s what I wish I could have got,” Gibbs said. “It’s a good points day, looking at the big picture.”
Gibbs jumped to second in the regular season championship standings behind only his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. Six races into his sophomore season, he’s a slim five points off the lead. Gibbs’ 7.8 average finish through six races leads the Cup Series.
MORE: 2024 Cup standings | Gibbs’ career stats
Gayle, who has been paired with Gibbs for the last four seasons dating back to the Xfinity Series, has seen his driver mature in great spurts. Nearly every week, the No. 54 car is part of the conversation for the win.
“[He’s] ahead of schedule probably,” Gayle added. “We’re right on pace where he’s doing a good job, but I think we’re going to take two steps forward, and there will be one every now and then we regress on because we’re still ahead of schedule. It’s still early in his career.
“To be this high in points, to have the start to the season that we’ve had, now we’ve got a margin where if that happens we’re still in good shape. I think that’s what is good is we’re in a good position right now.”
With a pair of short tracks on the horizon, the schedule continues to lend itself to the No. 54 team. Gayle believes the team had a car capable of winning last fall at Martinsville Speedway before getting plowed by Joey Logano during the final stage. First up is a 400-lap event on Easter Sunday at Richmond Raceway (7 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where the team has struggled.
“We need to be a little better than where we are, but we’ve been able to do that at some of these race tracks so far this year,” Gayle said of Richmond. “If we continue the improvement that we did from last year to these first few events, we will be in good shape.”
RICHMOND: Upcoming schedule
AUSTIN, Texas — William Byron’s dominant day at Circuit of The Americas confirmed at least one thing: He hasn’t lost a step of his road-course game since last year.
The No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team cruised to victory in Sunday afternoon’s NASCAR Cup Series race after leading a race-high 42 laps, scoring his second win on a road course in the last three such events. The only exception? A second-place finish at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course last fall.
RELATED: Race recap | At-track photos
Byron’s defense against Christopher Bell in the closing stages affirmed both his road-racing prowess and Toyota’s ever-looming speed.
“I never saw him make a mistake, which is what it was going to take to win today in the closing laps,” said Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports. “Because Bell had the faster car with the fresher tires, any big lockup into a corner, I think it would have been a different outcome. A lot of credit to William in doing that great job. Takes the whole team, the pit crew, everybody. They’re truly on quite a run here to start this season off. Can’t wait to see where they take it next.”
Gordon, like most in the garage, admitted he expected Toyotas to dominate Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix — even though Byron put the No. 24 Chevrolet on pole position. 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick controlled COTA a year ago and showed plenty of speed in Saturday’s practice, as did the Joe Gibbs Racing quartet of Bell, Ty Gibbs, Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin.
“They’ve got a lot of speed,” Gordon said. “It’s one thing when one car has speed, it’s another thing when a group of them have speed. That tells you a lot about what they have, what they’re bringing to the race track. It’s certainly on our radar in a big way.”
But so is Byron, who became the first multi-time Cup winner this year — and the first multi-time winner in each of the last three seasons. For him and crew chief Rudy Fugle, Sunday’s performance was business as usual on road courses, which is particularly notable since Watkins Glen International joins the NASCAR Playoffs this year in addition to Charlotte’s road course.
“I think it’s just part of the process and our evolution for our notebook for these race tracks,” Byron said. “I feel like for us, we can just take from this another data point of what we need to improve. I don’t think anyone’s car was driving perfect there. Just the way that this race track is with the ride over the bumps, just the way the curbing is, the track is pretty rough. I feel like it drives different than anywhere.
“At the same time, you can put this one in the notebook and say, ‘OK, when we go to what’s next, whenever we go to the next one, we know what to work on.’ We’ll just try to keep building at each one. I feel like we’ve gotten in a rhythm. We just have gotten a good feel for these places.”
Reddick told NASCAR.com earlier that it was important for his No. 45 Toyota to be “part of the conversation of winning this race.” That never really came into play Sunday, with Reddick leading just one lap and finishing fifth after qualifying third.
“I shouldn’t say it’s a bad day, but it’s not what we want when we come to a road course, right?” Reddick said. “We were able to get away with some mistakes in certain areas with a fifth place. So I mean, that’s not a bad thing, right? Obviously, none of us are satisfied with how we finished so we’ll be hungry. We’ll be working on it and getting ready for the next road course.”
Though Bell fell short at the buzzer, his electric charge should not be forgotten, either. The driver of the No. 20 Toyota — also a previous winner this season — has been a continuous threat on road courses with top 10s in 11 of his 21 starts on such tracks. Bell nearly erased a nine-second deficit to catch Byron’s bumper, falling short by just 0.692 seconds at the checkered flag.
Gibbs also shined with a third-place run, cementing the belief his Toyota teammates continue to preach — that a road-course victory is likely coming soon for the 21-year-old sophomore racer.
The good news for the field is that the next road race isn’t scheduled until June, when the Cup Series shifts westward to Sonoma Raceway in California. Until then, the notes from Circuit of The Americas will dictate teams’ next steps in trying to dethrone the No. 24 team.
NASCAR officials disqualified the No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Ford after Sunday’s Cup Series race at Circuit of The Americas for a violation found in post-race inspection.
Competition officials determined that the car did not meet the minimum weight requirement after Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at the 3.41-mile road course. The infraction falls under Section 14.11.2 (“Vehicle Weight”) in the NASCAR Rule Book.
RELATED: Official results | At-track photos: COTA
Justin Haley had driven the No. 51 Ford to an apparent 17th-place finish in the race, matching his season-best result. He will instead be relegated to last place in the 39-car field and will collect last-place points in the revised finishing order.
The penalty also dropped Haley from what would have been a 26th-place ranking to 31st in the Cup Series standings.
Haley is in his first year with the Rick Ware-owned organization after spending the last two Cup Series seasons with Kaulig Racing.
AUSTIN, Texas — Christopher Bell had a late-race charge for the ages in Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas. If the race was one lap longer, there’s a high probability the No. 20 team would have been celebrating in Victory Lane.
With stage break cautions returning at COTA for the first time since 2022, Bell and his crew chief Adam Stevens pondered the idea of staying out to collect stage points if the opportunity arose. Instead of making three pit stops over 68 laps, the strategy would be to stretch the fuel tank as far as possible, making one less trip to pit road. It would also mean that pitting late in the final stage would mean Bell had the freshest tires for the sprint to the finish.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos
The latter strategy panned out. Coming to Lap 13, when the pits closed until the conclusion of the opening stage, the front two runners of William Byron and Ty Gibbs came to pit road, handing the lead to Bell. The No. 20 team won its second stage of the season and gained 10 points, minimizing the loss if the two-stop strategy went awry.
“We took the points in Stage 1 and then we didn’t see another caution,” Bell said. “We talked about it all week. If we were going to jump the stages or not and we decided that if we had the opportunity to win the stages, we would take the points.”
The No. 20 team was expecting more cautions to help trim the distance he trailed to the frontrunners. As he battled through the field, he sent Kyle Larson around on Lap 21. On Lap 40, it was Kyle Busch who went around off his front bumper in Turn 1. That led to a heated discussion from Busch, his former boss in the Craftsman Truck Series and teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, who stormed up to Bell after the race.
“The Larson deal, that was totally on me and I had no intentions of spinning Kyle out,” Bell said. “Kyle Busch, he opened his entry way up into Turn 1 because they were side-by-side, and I ran my normal line on the bottom and wasn’t planning on passing him. He tried to do the crossover and I was underneath him. Obviously, I didn’t mean to spin him out at all. I will reach out to him and talk to him whenever we’re a little bit cooled off.”
After Bell made his final pit stop on Lap 49, he was north of 10 seconds behind Byron, who cycled back to the front of teams that pitted. Bell erased the gap quickly, first passing Ross Chastain before tracking down his Toyota teammate Tyler Reddick. Next up was Alex Bowman, and then he hustled to Ty Gibbs’ back bumper. With two laps remaining, Bell was still 2.4 seconds behind Byron for the race lead.
MORE: Expanded COTA highlights
Byron could see Bell getting larger in his rearview mirror.
“I mean, it was just trying to not make mistakes,” Byron said of seeing Bell close the gap. “I felt like I made a lot of micro-errors in the last 10 laps. I have to calm down a little bit, look back at those 10 laps and think about what could I do better in the car to stay mentally locked in and not get flustered by the mirror, seeing him closing in a braking zone.
“He definitely had fresher tires. I’m sure that helped a little bit.”
When the white flag flew, Bell was 1.7 seconds back. He chopped another second off, but his Herculean effort came up seven-tenths of a second short of winning his second race of the young 2024 season.
“This thing was amazing,” Bell said. “Super, super fast and proud to have a nice, solid race.”
By scoring 45 points — the second-highest total at COTA — Bell jumped a spot in the regular season championship standings to seventh, 38 points behind Martin Truex Jr.’s lead.
The strategy call, though, Bell believes may have cost him the race, noting: “Ultimately, I think that’s why we didn’t win.”
Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron turned in a steady and inspired drive to earn the NASCAR Cup Series victory from pole position in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas road course Sunday, holding off the field by less than a second but dominating the field when he needed to.
Following up on his season-opening Daytona 500 win, the 26-year-old Charlotte native became the first driver to win multiple races this season. This was his 12th career NASCAR Cup Series victory and gave his Hendrick team a series all-time best 28th win on NASCAR road courses.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos
While at times Byron made it look easy, holding a nearly three-second advantage on the field with 10 laps remaining, his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet did have to fend off a hard-charging Christopher Bell, who made up four positions in the closing laps and kept Byron honest in what was ultimately a 0.692-second margin of victory around the 20-turn, 3.41-mile circuit.
“I feel like I made a lot of mistakes in the last 10 laps, just micro-errors and Christopher was really fast there on the longer run,” Byron said. “This sport is so hard and so difficult week in and week out to show up and have fast cars. We’ve had a little bit of a rough stretch the last few weeks but put a lot of preparation in this past week and just thankful for the team I have around me and all the people back home as well.
“Just super thankful to have this opportunity. It’s just a lot of fun to win races, and it’s really difficult, too.”
For his part, Bell, driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and a winner at Phoenix this season, acknowledged it came down to a good road-course battle among good teams and talented drivers.
“Obviously, once I got to him, it was going to be tough to pass him, I just needed a couple mistakes, but William has been really good on the road courses and he was flawless today,” Bell said.
Just behind the pair was Bell’s 21-year-old JGR teammate Ty Gibbs, who is having a stellar sophomore season in NASCAR’s Cup Series. Gibbs ran top five for the majority of the day and was second to Byron until Bell passed him with only two laps remaining. The third-place effort marked Gibbs’ fifth top-10 finish in the season’s six races.
“We were just a little too loose in the right-handed corner,” Gibbs said. “I just wish we were a little tighter, but we did a really good job today. … Good points day. We’ll just keep working hard.”
In fact, the effort now brings Gibbs to second place in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, only five points behind his teammate Martin Truex Jr.
Byron’s Hendrick teammate Alex Bowman finished fourth, followed by 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, the 2023 COTA winner.
Unlike the previous day’s races at COTA with NASCAR’s other two national series, Sunday’s race had only two caution flags — both for scheduled stage breaks. It was a clean race that still featured seven leaders and 11 lead changes. But Byron led a dominant 42 of the 68 laps.
SHOP: Race winner gear
One of the sport’s best road-course racers, AJ Allmendinger finished sixth, followed by the 2022 COTA winner, Ross Chastain. Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch and Truex rounded out the top 10.
Shane van Gisbergen and Kamui Kobayashi — two international drivers making their first Cup Series starts this year — endured difficult days. Van Gisbergen’s No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet lost first gear during the middle portions of the race, and he finished 20th. Kobayashi had two on-track tangles — first with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and later with Sunoco rookie Josh Berry — that relegated his No. 50 23XI Racing Toyota to a 29th-place outcome.
Zane Smith was the highest finishing rookie in 19th.
The NASCAR Cup Series moves to Richmond Raceway next Sunday for the Toyota Owners 400 (7 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson is the defending race winner.
NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage confirmed Byron’s victory. The No. 51 was disqualified for not meeting minimum post-race weights. The No. 1 was taken to the R&D Center for further inspection.
Contributing: Staff reports
AUSTIN, Texas — Going overseas to pit a NASCAR vehicle in the 24 Hours of Le Mans will always be a career highlight for Jarius Morehead, Cody French and Mike Moss.
That challenge encapsulated the endurance they display on a weekly basis back in the United States — and shines brightly again this weekend at Circuit of The Americas.
The trio is pulling triple-duty this weekend in the Craftsman Truck Series, Xfinity Series and Cup Series at the 3.41-mile road course. Morehead served as the tire carrier, French the jackman and Moss the rear changer on Rajah Caruth’s No. 71 truck, the only vehicle they serviced together all weekend. In the Xfinity Series, Morehead carries tires for the No. 9 JR Motorsports entry driven by Brandon Jones, while Moss and French serve on the No. 6 JD Motorsports entry piloted this week by Ty Dillon.
Morehead and French will additionally service the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet in the Cup Series for Carson Hocevar, while Moss changes rear tires for Corey LaJoie on Sundays.
Their experience working on NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports’ Garage 56 entry in Le Mans, France, nine months ago created a lasting bond, but it also provided plenty of applicable lessons back on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
“We probably were up for at least 40 hours that day,” Morehead recalled of his Le Mans race day. “So just learning, just being very detailed, very precise with what you’re doing. It’s a longer race and longer mileage, so you make one mistake, it’s crucial to that race over there. The lesson I learned is just be patient doing your job and be as precise as possible.”
French added that by working on the Garage 56 endeavor, their group — which also included Dawson Backus and Donovan Williams — had extended time to practice and learn with the Next Gen vehicle, even excelling at Le Mans in a pit-crew challenge.
“In all of NASCAR, I would say this pit crew probably has the most experience with the Next Gen car,” French said, “and doing so with all the extra practices and the countless testing hours that we’ve done at certain tracks, including the race. I would say building confidence and familiarity with the car itself, knowing how the car operates, knowing how … the car is gonna react essentially to a pit stop more so than what a five-lug car would.
“Now we can come back over here in the States and know that we could run some of the fastest stops in NASCAR and have confidence in ourselves that if there’s certain problems with the car, this is the way we’ve got to operate.”
At COTA, the order of operations started with a stout Saturday doubleheader with the Truck Series and Xfinity Series, with little time in between both events. This grind is nothing new to the trio, but that doesn’t make the experience any less challenging. Both Saturday vehicles have five-lug wheels, while Sunday’s Cup race features single lugs on the Next Gen car. That matters — even on Saturday.
“On the hot side of the track, I would say from Cup to Xfinity and Truck, the main thing is slowing the pace down,” French said. “On Sundays we’re trying to go eight, nine seconds, and then on Fridays and Saturdays, you’re trying to run 12 to 13 on a good stop. And I’m a jack man, so the game is a little bit different. I’m reacting to the changers. Changers carry the load on Fridays and Saturdays. Jackman is essentially your workhorse on Sundays.
“It’s just making sure your changers are on their A-game: hitting five, making sure five are tight and then knowing that when you wake up Sunday morning, roles are reversed. It’s the jackman’s turn to go.”
They’re also no stranger to milestone moments. Three weeks ago, their speedy service on Caruth’s No. 71 truck helped propel Caruth to his first career win at Las Vegas, with Caruth becoming the third Black driver to win at the NASCAR national series level.
“It’s great because they had a huge role in that success from getting us out (with) good stops in Stage 1 and getting us back in the game with that green-flag pit stop there in Stage 3,” Caruth said. “So I would put my guys up against anybody in the truck field.”
A sophomore Truck Series driver, Caruth has developed a strong relationship with his crew already and praised Morehead as a leader of the group. In turn, Caruth and the crew lean on one another and root for each other’s success.
“It’s important to me to have relationships with everybody on my team,” Caruth said, “from our mechanics to our people at the shop, people we go to the race track with and obviously our pit crew just, because everybody has an important role in this, right? Yes, I’m the one that gets to drive the truck, but that’s not the most important thing. Everybody has a role in this deal.”
A former three-year starting defensive back and captain on North Carolina State’s football team, Morehead reflects on the last year with gratitude and grace, appreciative of the glory that has come from such unique challenges.
“You just look back at it and just thank God for everything that he put in your life,” Morehead said. “Definitely a blessing to get his (Caruth’s) first win. Last year close to the end of the year, we were like, ‘we’re gonna get you a win.’ We dreamed. We were talking and it was just exciting to see him get out of that car, his parents over there with him, and him to get his first win. You just look and thank God for everything.”
Editor’s note: Projection has been updated after Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions:
After a diverse mix of superspeedways, intermediate tracks and short tracks in the opening five races, the Cup Series gears up for a tussle on the road course on Sunday at Circuit of The Americas in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).
Racing Insights’ forecast points to Tyler Reddick as the likely one to secure another victory at COTA.
RELATED: Set your Fantasy Live roster | Weekend schedule
Reddick, the most recent winner at COTA, has exhibited remarkable skill in navigating twisty tracks in a Cup car. With eight top-10 finishes in the last 10 road-course races, he is the only driver to win more than once on road courses in the Next Gen car. Reddick is also the only driver to qualify and finish in the top five in the two races at COTA in the Next Gen era.
Following Reddick in the projections is a Hendrick Motorsports trio of Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson and William Byron, with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell jumping up into the top five and replacing Michael McDowell after Saturday’s practice and qualifying session (the full projection is listed below).
OTHER DRIVERS TO WATCH
ROSS CHASTAIN: Chastain scored his first career cup win at COTA back in 2022, and the track has always been a solid place for the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing driver. He’s the only driver to finish all three races at the circuit in the top five.
ALEX BOWMAN: Bowman muscled out a fourth-place finish in a wild Bristol race last week. He’s also been sneaky consistent on the Austin road course, owning an average finish of 4.33, his best of all tracks.
SHANE VAN GISBERGEN: Not only will this weekend be SVG’s first time racing at COTA, but it’s also his first of seven races on the Cup schedule this season. It will be interesting to see how he stacks up with the rest of the field for the first road-course race of the season after a handful of Xfinity races under his belt and added background knowledge of the Cup car.
CHRIS BUESCHER: Look, it may be the second straight week Buescher has been a driver to watch, but the stats show he might know a thing or two around a track like COTA. He finished eighth there last year, and his worst finish in the last 11 road-course races is only 11th.
MARTIN TRUEX JR.: Of all the different tracks the Cup Series has raced on so far in 2024, Truex has been the only constant. He currently has the best average finish among drivers through the first five races (8.6), and he has finished in the top 10 in three out of the last five road-course races.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE ECHOPARK AUTOMOTIVE GRAND PRIX
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results.
| Finish | Car Number | Driver |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 45 | Tyler Reddick |
| 2 | 9 | Chase Elliott |
| 3 | 5 | Kyle Larson |
| 4 | 24 | William Byron |
| 5 | 20 | Christopher Bell |
| 6 | 54 | Ty Gibbs |
| 7 | 1 | Ross Chastain |
| 8 | 17 | Chris Buescher |
| 9 | 34 | Michael McDowell |
| 10 | 16 | Shane van Gisbergen |
| 11 | 19 | Martin Truex Jr. |
| 12 | 48 | Alex Bowman |
| 13 | 11 | Denny Hamlin |
| 14 | 8 | Kyle Busch |
| 15 | 13 | AJ Allmendinger |
| 16 | 12 | Ryan Blaney |
| 17 | 2 | Austin Cindric |
| 18 | 99 | Daniel Suárez |
| 19 | 22 | Joey Logano |
| 20 | 14 | Chase Briscoe |
| 21 | 23 | Bubba Wallace |
| 22 | 3 | Austin Dillon |
| 23 | 6 | Brad Keselowski |
| 24 | 7 | Corey LaJoie |
| 25 | 51 | Justin Haley |
| 26 | 41 | Ryan Preece |
| 27 | 47 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. |
| 28 | 10 | Noah Gragson |
| 29 | 38 | Todd Gilliland |
| 30 | 43 | Erik Jones |
| 31 | 21 | Harrison Burton |
| 32 | 15 | Kaz Grala |
| 33 | 71 | Zane Smith |
| 34 | 42 | John H. Nemechek |
| 35 | 4 | Josh Berry |
| 36 | 77 | Carson Hocevar |
| 37 | 50 | Kamui Kobayashi |
| 38 | 31 | Daniel Hemric |
| 39 | 66 | Timmy Hill |
AUSTIN, Texas — Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill fought tooth and nail in overtime of Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Circuit of The Americas. Naturally, neither one of them took home the checkered flag.
Kyle Larson was the benefactor of the late-race bumping and banging between two of the toughest Xfinity Series regulars — even if SVG is a rookie still learning the stock-car ropes.
RELATED: Race recap | At-track photos: COTA
Van Gisbergen led 20 laps in the Focused Health 250, tied with Kaulig Racing teammate AJ Allmendinger for most of Saturday’s race. His No. 97 WeatherTech Chevrolet controlled the final restart in NASCAR Overtime, but Hill stayed glued to his bumper up the hill into the tight hairpin of Turn 1. SVG ran wide and Hill scooted into the lead, suddenly storming to a potential third win of 2024.
But New Zealander SVG had more to say with his front bumper, running into Hill’s back bumper into Turn 15 and pushing both cars wide — allowing Larson to charge left past both of them on the way to the win.
Van Gisbergen, winner of his Cup debut last July in the inaugural Chicago Street Race, crossed the line second but was levied a 30-second time penalty post-race for shortcutting the track on the final lap, dropping him to a 27th-place finish. Hill ended as the runner-up.
“That last restart, he just drove through me at (Turn) 1. I guess that’s how it is here,” van Gisbergen told FOX Sports. “I just stood up for myself. But it was some pretty awesome racing with AJ, Kyle and at the end it just turned into a mess. But that’s how it is. Really fun but wish we could’ve got the lead, but Kyle just snuck in there.”
Hill explained to reporters that he caught SVG’s rear bumper at the start/finish line surprisingly quick, almost as if SVG “semi-missed a shift,” Hill speculated.
“So I hit him and as we went up the hill, there’s some bumps far left. We were both going over the bumps,” Hill said. “I was obviously hitting him. And then I got off of him once we got to the corner, and it looked like he was wheel-hopping at that point, slid up, so then I was like oh, this is my time and took the lead.
“We took the white and I was trying to drive in as deep as I could in the corners to not let them get to me, and then I kind of drove into (Turn) 13, started to slide the front end a little bit, and then I got really loose on exit of 14. I’d have to watch the replay, but getting into 15, I’m trying to protect and it felt like from my perspective, the 97 just ran through us. And I mean you see his front end; it’s caved in really bad, so he didn’t even give us a chance to make the corner obviously.”
With neither making the corner, Larson was able to escape with his first Xfinity win of 2024. The 2021 Cup champion was able to partake in some fierce battles with SVG and Allmendinger earlier in the contest, with all three leaning on each other, dicing up with crossovers and charging corners during a run. Larson couldn’t help but simply enjoy the moments.
“He’s just better than us,” Larson said. “He’s just way better than we all are at this. Like AJ is a level up from me, and he’s a level up from AJ. I got too caught up in the moment having fun there. I should have just forfeited the spot and realized that we were racing time at that moment and I shouldn’t have been racing him.
“I wanted to get to the lead. And he kind of surprised me when he got to my right side off of 13 — I didn’t know that he was there. Then he surprised me again when he got to my left side because I thought he was still out there on the right side. I was like, OK, this is going to be fun. I’m just gonna race him. We’re gonna have some fun here. And then AJ got out and I’m like, man, I just screwed myself.”
Getting lost in the joys of racing, though, is naturally a good thing — at least for Larson, who ended up in Victory Lane. Van Gisbergen enjoyed it too and smiled through the frustration of losing, but couldn’t quite shake the defeat. As for his post-race emotions? He was feeling “a bit of everything.”
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “The cars are awesome to drive, awesome to race. But yeah, gutted to bend it and gutted not to win at the end. Thinking so many things in my head, what I could have done different. But at the restart, I couldn’t have done much different. I was on the inside and just got driven through, but we’ve seen that here every year. That’s kind of how it is, so I was expecting it I guess.”
Kyle Larson was ultimately both patient and smart taking the lead on the final overtime lap to win an aggressive Focused Health 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Circuit of The Americas (COTA), the first road-course test for the series this year that earned an “A” for high drama and close competition.
New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill were duking it out for the lead — and pushing each other high off the race line as the field approached the checkered flag. With those two fending each other off, Larson drove his No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet low around both and was able to pull away to a 1.215-second victory — the only lap the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champ led all day around the 20-turn, 3.41-mile road course.
RELATED: Official results | At-track photos: COTA
Van Gisbergen took the checkered flag second in the No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevy but was accessed a 30-second penalty for exceeding track limits in that last-lap battle with Hill, which ultimately put him in 27th. So Hill, driver of the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, was officially scored as the runner-up.
Larson was all smiles climbing out of car, conceding he wasn’t surprised things got so aggressive in the end. He was one of the few cars — and only one among the front-runners — to drop into pit lane on the final caution to get gas and had worked his way back up front. It was his second big rally of the day. Larson dropped to the rear of the field before the start after his Hendrick Motorsports crew replaced a cracked brake rotor on his No. 17 Chevy. He recovered to challenge van Gisbergen and other front-runners through the middle stage of the race.
“It feels really special because seems like every time we’ve run the 17 car — any of us four drivers — we’re always fast on track and somehow give it away,” Larson said. “Today I was definitely not the fastest, but we were patient. I knew the 21 [Hill] had shoved SVG [van Gisbergen] through [Turn] 1 and if he got to him it could get dicey.
“I was just trying to be patient. I was thinking when to make my move and when I saw him shoving him through [turns] 15 and 16, I thought this could get good and thankfully I cleared them off in that corner. Pretty crazy. Just wild there. … Really cool, just awesome to win here at COTA.”
Neither van Gisbergen nor Austin Hill were too happy with the final outcome — both their cars damaged from the beating and banging on the final lap. Asked if he would speak to Hill about the racing, van Gisbergen said, “Yeah, I guess so.’’ But he was mostly positive about having a chance to win in only his fifth NASCAR Xfinity Series race of his career.
“It was a crazy race and the car got better and better,” van Gisbergen said. “On that last restart he [Hill] just drove through me in [turn] one. I guess I stood up for myself. But it was pretty awesome racing with [teammate] AJ [Allmendinger] and in the end just turned into a mess. That’s how it is.
“It was really fun. Wish I could have gotten through to the lead, but the car [Larson] just snuck through there. He was driving really well. A lot of fun.”
While van Gisbergen managed a smile for the post-race television interview, he definitely had to battle all afternoon — including with Kaulig teammate Allmendinger, a two-time winner of this COTA Xfinity Series race and the series’ best active road-course driver.
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They battled head-to-head for the final laps of the regularly scheduled race, only for Allmendinger to get swept up and out in a three-wide attempt for the lead in Turn 1 during the first green-white-checkered flag period. He was running fifth at the time of the final caution that forced a second overtime start and ultimately finished 10th.
John Hunter Nemechek finished third, reigning series champion Cole Custer was fourth and Parker Kligerman rounded out the top five. Rookie Jesse Love, Austin Green, last week’s winner Chandler Smith, Sam Mayer and Allmendinger rounded out the top 10.
It was a particularly impressive day for Green, son of former Xfinity Series champion David Green, finishing seventh in his first series start.
Big Machine Racing driver Kligerman earned his first stage win of the year, claiming the Stage 1 victory. Brandon Jones seemingly won Stage 2 only to receive a penalty for cutting Turn 5 on the last lap of the stage. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Riley Herbst was instead awarded the stage win – his first of the season.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series returns to competition next Saturday with the ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Chandler Smith is the defending winner, earning his career first Xfinity Series trophy there last spring.
Notes: Post-race inspection was all clear in the Xfinity Series garage without major issue, with Larson’s No. 17 Chevrolet confirmed as the winning car. The No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for driver Ty Gibbs was found with a single unsecured lug nut in a post-race check, which should mean a monetary fine for the team’s crew chief in the midweek penalty report.
Contributing: Staff reports