By CJ Carlson
We got to see NASCAR continue on Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, though the competition wound up having a dominant winner. That winner is Kyle Larson, who picked up his 24th NASCAR Cup victory thanks to another stellar performance.
Larson didn’t just eke out a last second victory over some tight competition, he flat out swept the first two stages. Not only that, but he was able to hold onto the lead for a whopping 181 laps and found a way to hold off Tyler Reddick in the process. This is the second straight win in Las Vegas for Larson, as he won another event in October. In total, he’s won in Las Vegas three times throughout his career. It seems like he’s got something good going on down there.
Other Racers Didn’t Fare As Well As Kyle Larson
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all positive news out there for the other competitors. William Byron had a large trash bag fly into his car, and he said afterwards that there was a beer can inside of it as well. The bag had to be removed from the car due to it causing the engine to overheat, and he had to pit on Lap 47 to get it sorted.
When asked about it, crew chief Rudy Fugle said, “Never seen anything like that before. So, quite the day…. I hate that it didn’t give us a chance to show, really, how strong a car, I think, we could have had all day long.” Byron still wound-up finishing in 10th place in the race but could have been in line for a much stronger day had this not happened.
Another disappointing afternoon went to Kylee Busch and his pit crew. Busch ended up sliding past his pit box by a very small amount, but the crew didn’t see it straight away. Fast forward, and Busch got a penalty, the fourth major mistake for Busch already in this new NASCAR season.
All in all, though, there were a number of racers that had a strong showing, with Larson being the most dominant. We should be seeing NASCAR again in the Cup Series on Sunday for the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway, Avondale.
