For much of Sunday night’s (Sept. 1) Southern 500, Kyle Larson looked unbeatable.
After qualifying fourth, Larson made his way to the front of the field on lap 46. What followed was an absolute onslaught of epic proportions, as he proceeded to lead 263 of the next 292 laps of the race.
Larson won both stages, and when excluding pit stops and alternate pit strategies, he was never passed for the lead. While keeping it somewhat close, the rest of the field didn’t have the firepower to contend with the No. 5 car. With around 50 laps to go, back-to-back Southern 500 wins — and a regular season championship — looked to be near certainties for Larson.
But things started to go haywire as a rash of cautions came out in the final 50 laps. Chase Briscoe was running second for the balance of the race, and he inched closer and closer to Larson the longer the race went on. And after a series of cautions for Carson Hocevar and Todd Gilliland led to a restart with 40 laps to go, Briscoe’s car came to life.
Larson retained the lead, but Briscoe was all over his back bumper and ready to bounce at the slightest mistake. For the first time all night, Larson looked to be in serious trouble.
Another Hocevar wreck brought out another caution, and Larson restarted on the inside of the front row after Ross Chastain elected to stay out. Larson got a poor restart on the inside line, and that was all Briscoe needed to take the lead and shut the door behind him.
Larson ultimately faded to fourth, more than six seconds behind Briscoe at the checkered flag. He led nearly three quarters of the race, but it was all for naught, as Briscoe took the Southern 500 and Tyler Reddick took the regular season championship by a single point.
To add insult to injury, Larson’s car was so fast that he would’ve lapped the field had the entire race gone green without any cautions.
Between the 263 laps led and the scorching lap times Larson was putting up, a collapse of this magnitude feels shocking. But when looking the recent history of the Southern 500, it isn’t.
The elephant in the room is that Larson doesn’t have the best track record in closing out dominant races, as he’s only won three of the 11 where he’s at least 200 laps. But Larson started his NASCAR Cup Series career 0-for-6 in such races, and since his victory in the 2021 Coca-Cola 600, he’s won three of the last five.
Rather, the reason comes down to the fact that the Southern 500 — and Darlington Raceway in general — is just a monstrous beast.
The Southern 500 is arguably the greatest test of endurance, stamina and durability that remains on the Cup schedule today. It’s typically the second-longest race on the schedule in terms of run-time behind the Coke 600, and it’s a test of rapidly changing track conditions, with teams constantly having to keep up with adjustments in the transitions from the sun to sunset to night. Throw those in with Darlington’s egg-shaped layout and its unique and unevenly banked corners, and you have what’s potentially the most difficult race to win on the entire calendar.
In a race that’s akin to trench warfare, being the dominant car at the end of the race is far better than being the dominant car overall. Southern 500 performances like Larson’s — where a driver leads more than half the race in a losing effort — aren’t the exceptions, but rather the rule.
In the last 30 years of the Southern 500, a driver has led at least 177 of 367 laps on 12 occasions.
Of those 12, only one of them went on to win the race: Kevin Harvick in 2014.
On the flipside, eight of the last 14 Southern 500s have been won by a driver that led less than 10% of the race.
You don’t even need to look further than Larson himself. He’s now led triple-digit laps in four Southern 500s (2017, 2018, 2021 and 2024), with no wins to show for it. On the other hand, how many laps did Larson lead in his Southern 500 victory last season?
“Only” 55.
Simply put, the Southern 500 is a difficult race to win, and it’s an even more difficult race to achieve perfection in. And as the saying goes with all races, the only lap led that truly matters is the last one.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.