What Happened?
Kyle Larson ran down and passed Alex Bowman with seven laps to go to take home his first NASCAR Cup Series win of 2025 on Sunday (March 23) at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Larson made up great time on Bowman throughout the final handful of laps. Known for running less than an inch (probably) from the wall and finding insane speed, he forced teammate Bowman higher on the racetrack to try to match the No. 5’s line, resulting in the No. 48 scraping the wall hard enough to kill all of his momentum and give Larson his second win of the weekend (oh, how close we were to a complete weekend sweep).
What Really Happened?
It feels like the race at Phoenix Raceway just a few weeks ago was actually all-around better than Sunday’s race.
Now hold on — I know, I know, that doesn’t mean Phoenix is an all-around better racetrack than Homestead — one great race at Phoenix and one dud at Homestead doesn’t change that.
However, there were only 27 lead changes between nine leaders, and three of those drivers combined to lead 223 of the race’s 267 laps. If it weren’t for the dominant car blowing a motor (more on that later), it’s possible that the final few lead changes don’t happen and Larson doesn’t win his first race of the year.
Meanwhile, Phoenix had 17 lead changes between six leaders, which isn’t bad for that track. Not to mention all the passing we saw throughout the field, the comers and goers, and the action all around the track — something that is seldom able to be said for Phoenix, and often able to be said for Homestead.
Even the finish was more thrilling than that of Homestead (granted, overtime helped give Phoenix a great finish), despite the final pass for the lead at Homestead coming with under 10 laps to go.
The difference was obviously the option tires that NASCAR brought to Phoenix that made the racing appear so much better than usual at that track. However, who’s to say that the tire NASCAR brings for the championship race in November isn’t a dud?
By no means am I saying that NASCAR should keep the finale at Phoenix — in fact, I’d be inclined to say that the option tire addition is putting a band aid over a deep cut and it’s time to move on.
However, nothing about Sunday’s race at Homestead stood out as that finale-worthy. In fact, the Homestead race this year had the same bore as Phoenix normally does — until this year. Even the Xfinity race the day prior on Saturday (March 22) was shaping up to be a complete stinker before a late caution set up a crazy finish that took Larson out of the opportunity to clean sweep the weekend (he held a nearly 20-second lead prior to the caution).
It’s totally fair to wish for a different finale venue (this author is in favor of rotating venues), but if this race was any indication, let’s not be so quick to just hand the finale back over to Homestead, especially after the arguable improvement we saw in the racing at Phoenix.
Who Stood Out?
Something about Homestead and the Next Gen car just clicks for AJ Allmendinger.
In his last four starts in South Beach, Allmendinger has an average finish of 5.75 and hasn’t finished worse than eighth. That continued on Sunday with a seventh-place finish. Allmendinger hung around the back half of the top 10 for a good majority of the afternoon, and he was able to extend his Homestead top-10 streak to four.
However, my eye is on the driver who came home ninth. If you were to ask me who might be the next driver to get their first career win, Ryan Preece is slowly building a legitimate case to be my number one answer.
Following a third-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Preece backed it up with a ninth-place finish at Homestead. Preece currently sits 16th in the point standings on the strength of back-to-back top 10s, and despite starting the season on his lid at Daytona International Speedway, Preece has remained steady, winning a stage at Circuit of the Americas and now finding solid results since joining RFK Racing.
Don’t count the No. 60 out as a dark horse this season.
Who Fell Flat?
A 29th-place finish is not what Christopher Bell was hoping for after coming up short of four wins in a row last week. After an early spin in stage one, Bell could never recover, finishing one lap behind Larson.
Likewise, Trackhouse Racing teammates Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen were non-factors the entire day, with the former failing to find any competitive speed whatsoever. There was no pace from either driver at any point during the race, resulting in dismal finishes of 31st and 32nd, respectively.
But there’s nobody who’s looking to go back to the drawing board more than the No. 12 team and driver Ryan Blaney.
Far and away the most dominant driver of the afternoon, Blaney led 124 laps and took home stage one. But for the second time already in a short 2025 season, a good run went sour under the hood.
Ryan Blaney's engine just exploded. That's the second engine failure of the year for the No. 12 team. #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/UyRwsOXkw7
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 23, 2025
Blaney leaves Homestead with a 36th-place result, failing to complete the final 60 laps. With three straight finishes outside the top 25 (two of them due to engine failure), the 2023 champion is looking for something — anything — to go right this season for his team.
Paint Scheme of the Race
When heading south to Miami, one could expect that someone will run a vibrant paint scheme to match the vibes of something such as Miami Vice. So who was going to do it this time around?
Enter Bubba Wallace.
Led 56 laps, ran up front all day long and finished third.
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 23, 2025
A great showing by @BubbaWallace! pic.twitter.com/aqCjh2b95w
While Wallace and sponsor Columbia are no stranger to running vibrant, off-the-wall color palettes for paint schemes, the scheme they brought to the track in Miami was just the one to match the vibes of what people think of when they think of Miami.
What’s Next?
You can run, but you can’t hide.
The NASCAR Cup Series turns to its first true short track of the season, heading to Ridgeway, Va. for the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway. Coverage begins at approximately 3 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1; for radio listeners, Motor Racing Network will have radio coverage.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter, among many other duties he takes on for the site. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.