LEBANON, Tenn. — By all means, it was certainly an adventurous Ally 400 for Kyle Larson at Nashville Superspeedway.
While his longstanding on-track feud with good friend Denny Hamlin continued, his part in Sunday’s five NASCAR overtime attempts may have trumped that.
Larson seemed destined for a third-place finish with two laps to go before an Austin Cindric spin set up the preliminary overtime attempt. Hamlin led with Ross Chastain in second.
On the restart, Larson drove into turn one too deep, knocking Chastain into the outside wall. It sparked a giant wreck that claimed the likes of Ty Gibbs and Austin Dillon.
“I knew just being second row, whether you’re inside or outside, you weren’t gonna have a shot,” Larson said. “I thought my opportunity to give myself a chance to win was to get clean air on the nose. I just ran in really deep, got tight and drove into Ross.”
Restarting on the front row for the second overtime attempt, Larson had trouble getting going and created a massive stack-up.
“I just got really out of shape through the gears and thankfully didn’t cause a crash on the frontstretch,” he said.
Then, fuel really began to come into play. Like many others, Larson hadn’t pitted since lap 220 to make it the distance without another stop. He rolled through the caution laps without any indication he was about to run out.
But on the third restart, wasn’t able to accelerate. Kyle Busch couldn’t avoid the mess and hit the wall, ending a promising run for the Richard Childress Racing driver.
“Hate that for Kyle. I had no warning,” he said. “We knew we were really close on fuel. It was gonna be a stretch to make it, but I had no low fuel pressure alarm, anything on my dash. So it was a bit surprising to me when I went to the throttle, it just never went.
“Couldn’t really get out of the way either because we were still to the wall. I hadn’t gotten to the dogleg yet to get out of the way. I’m really, really bummed for him and all that because he needs the points.”
Larson rolled down pit road and got a splash of fuel. And after two more restarts, he somehow ended up with a top-10 finish as Joey Logano nabbed the win.
“We were able to work through the last couple restarts to get a top 10. But either way, bummed with how it all kind of ended up,” he said. “Obviously, I would have liked another (restart). But it’s just NASCAR racing with bodies that are tough and cars with low fuel. It was wild, but hopefully it didn’t look too amateur on TV.”
Larson ran most of the afternoon inside the top five, trailing the Toyota tandem of Christopher Bell, Hamlin and Tyler Reddick. His run-in with Hamlin came toward the end of Stage Two, when he pushed the No. 11 car out of the groove on entry to the corner.
It was a bit of revenge from last week, when multiple times, Hamlin roughed up Larson at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Their history dates back to last year when twice – at Kansas Speedway and Pocono Raceway – Larson ended up on the wrong side of a move for the win.
“I feel like we race well together at times, and there’s times where I feel like he races me not the fairest, and I’m sure he feels the same way,” he said. “It’s not an ongoing rivalry, but there’s definitely weeks and stretches where it compiles. Hopefully, we can move on from it soon.”
When asked, Hamlin downplayed it and said he didn’t have any hard feelings.
Despite Sunday’s trials and tribulations, Larson broke the tie with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott for the points lead. With seven races remaining in the regular season, Larson leads by 20 – despite missing the Coca-Cola 600.