Lap 126 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway could’ve been the demise of Kyle Larson and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team and their hunt for a championship.
After scoring points in the first stage, Larson endured a slow pit stop due to a lug-nut issue on the right-rear tire early in the second segment. He’d later come down pit lane again to rectify an issue with the left-rear tire.
It pinned the 2021 Cup Series champion one lap down.
However, a caution flag with 74 laps remaining allowed Larson to get back on the lead lap.
He’d vault from 22nd with 68 laps to go to 11th by race’s end, salvaging points and staying above the cutline by 35 markers.
“Yeah, it was a messy, messy day,” Larson said. “None of the first races in the rounds have been clean, at all, for us. But this was a long, hard-fought 11th-place finish. We just had a lot of unfortunate things happen with the debris that got stuck on our nose. We were able to overcome that and I thought we were going to be fine.
“We had a strong finish in the second stage, and then we had the issues on the pit stop and just had to fight from there.
“We got the most we could out of the rest of the day. I’m proud of this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy team for the rebound and having a clean rest of the race.”
The Cup Series heads to Homestead-Miami Speedway next week. Larson won there in 2022 and in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2015.