Kyle Larson took his No. 5 Chevrolet to victory lane in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway on Sunday, April 2.
Larson held off his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Josh Berry, who has been filling in for Chase Elliott on ovals since Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Berry was the beneficiary of pit strategy and a final pit stop that got him out second behind Larson.
“It’s really cool, we’ve been close to winning a couple, but William [Byron] has been extremely good this year. It was going to be between him, (No.) 19, us and the [No.] 20 was really good. Things worked out, my pit crew had a great stop,” Larson told FOX Sports. “Shoutout to Brandon Johnson our jackman he turned 30 today, and our spotter Tyler Monn turned 30 today. What an awesome HendrickCars.com Chevy. I got in to the [No.] 99 on pit road toward the end of the second stage and we were able to get calmed down and refocused and was able to get it done.”
Berry told FOX Sports after his amazing run: “Man, this is really cool. I gotta give all the credit to this NAPA team. Tom [Gray] and Alan [Gustafson] remotely of course, and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. They made some great calls. When we were in clean track we weren’t running bad lap times and I’m so glad they tried something different to get us up front … What a huge day. To start in the back and get spun out and work through the field there and finish second is pretty cool.
Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five.
Michael McDowell, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs and Brad Keselowski completed the top 10.
Byron and Denny Hamlin won stage one and stage two respectively. Both would finish poorly after several late-race incidents. Hamlin received several pit-road penalties over the course of the race. But one final speeding penalty ended his chance at the win.
Byron found himself on the receiving end of a bump from Bell on a late-race restart. The contact sent his No. 24 Chevrolet careening into the outside wall. Byron’s misfortune cools his early-season momentum a bit.
The win locks Larson into the playoffs this season and is his 20th overall in his Cup Series career.
Martin Truex Jr. also looked to have the race in hand at one point late, but ran out of fresh tires and was unable to put fresh tires on for the final restart. The misfortune pushed Truex all the way down to 11th in the running order.
Cup Results from Richmond
The Cup Series will return to Bristol Motor Speedway for the Food City Dirt Race on Sunday, April 9, airing on FOX at 7 p.m. ET.
About the author
Garrett joined Frontstretch as a news writer in 2023, and became a fantasy racing and betting writer in 2024. Hailing from the heart of coal country in southern West Virginia, he's a married father of three and currently enrolled in the Physical Therapy Assistant Program at New River Community Technical College in Beaver, WV.
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After the first segment ended with Hendrick driver Byron winning it took 22 seconds til the commercial started, After the second segment ended with Toyota driver Hamlin winning it took 25 seconds. They showed Hamlin longer.
And your point is?
Toyota pays a LOT of money for TV time. Who needs to see the (Toyota) driver’s feet? From the time the pole car crossed the start line and the event started until the first commercial the time was 14 minutes and 58 seconds. They couldn’t wait the usual five minutes.