By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Kyle Larson has led a lot of laps and come awfully close to hoisting a trophy at Homestead-Miami Speedway. On Sunday he finally did both, winning the Dixie Vodka 400 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race in dominant form.
Larson swept both Stage wins and led 199 of the race’s 267 laps in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to pull away to a 1.261-second victory over Florida native Ross Chastain in the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevy.
Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger was third with Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon and Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing’s Brad Keselowski rounding out the top five. It is the 2012 series champion Keselowski’s first Top-five finish since becoming co-owner of the organization this season.
The win was 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Larson’s third of the year and 19th of his career – but the first at the 1.5-mile Homestead oval after a pair of previous near-misses. He led a race best 132 laps in 2016, but finished runner-up. He led 145 laps in 2017 and finished third.
“No matter what team I’ve been with, things haven’t worked out on my end to get a win, so glad to get one today,’’ Larson said.
“Definitely the best run we’ve had all year long,’’ he added. “We’ve been capable of it I feel like many weekends, we just hadn’t quite put it all together. [Crew chief] Cliff [Daniels] gave a great speech this morning and got us all ready to go and focused.
“Amazing race car,’’ he noted with a smile.
The 30-year-old Californian was eliminated from the Playoffs in the last round, so Chastain was the top-finishing championship contender with only one race – next week at Martinsville, Va. – to set the four driver Championship field for the Nov. 6 season finale at Phoenix.
Only two Playoff drivers finished in the Top-10 Sunday at Homestead: Chastain and Denny Hamlin, who was seventh in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Playoff drivers Christopher Bell (finished 11th), Sunday’s polesitter William Byron (12th), Chase Elliott (14th), Ryan Blaney (17th) and Joey Logano (18th) were still running on the lead lap at the checkered flag. The eighth Playoff-eligible driver, Chase Briscoe, finished last (36th) after making contact with the wall on lap 160.
Hamlin (four laps), Bell (four laps) and Byron (33 laps) all spent time leading the field before various setbacks.
Team Penske’s Logano is the only…
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