Kyle Larson claimed his first win of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season with a dominant showing over the field and a tough battle against second-place Tyler Reddick.
Larson earned his third career Cup win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday (March 3) and the 24th of his career.
“Yeah, I knew Tyler was gonna be the guy to beat,” Larson said as he celebrated with his son at the start/finish line.
“Kyle did a really good job of pretty much taking away every opportunity that I got there,” said a defeated Reddick.
Ryan Blaney, Ross Chastain, Ty Gibbs, Noah Gragson, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and William Byron were the rest of the top-10 finishers in third through 10th, respectively.
Concerns of heavy winds and low grip felt during Saturday’s practice and qualifying were lessened under the clear skies of Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The field was able to race under third, four and even five-wide conditions with several lead changes in the early laps of the race.
The competitive racing of the Cup Series’ first mile-and-a-half track of the schedule showed improvements for the Toyotas and its new body shape, meanwhile, little to no change was seen from the Ford camp.
Stage one saw two yellow flags and one red. The first caution came on lap 10 for a flat tire on Christopher Bell’s No. 20 Toyota. The latter two flags were the result of a loose wheel on Chris Buescher’s No. 17 Ford that caused hard, damaging contact with the outside wall.
Larson held off Reddick to claim stage one. Truex, Kyle Busch, Hamlin, Gibbs, Corey LaJoie, Chastain, Austin Cindric and Bell rounded out the top ten from third through 10th, respectively.
Larson again held off Reddick to sweep the stages. Hamlin, Blaney, Truex, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, Alex Bowman, Logano and Erik Jones captured the remaining stage points, in third through 10th respectively, in a four-lap shootout following a spin from Bell off turn 2.
From Las Vegas, the Cup Series will remain in the west with the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway. Coverage will be available on Sunday, March 10 on FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM, beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET.
Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …