BRISTOL, Tenn. — For the majority of the Food City 500, it appeared to be the Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney show as they were the two fastest cars during the race. Larson mirrored his race the previous night in the O’Reilly Series, sweeping the first two stages, and late race cautions played a factor.
“I felt like we had moments where we were a contender – like last night, once the rubber gets laid down and you don’t have a 100-lap run to the end, you can go up there and push hard,” Larson said. “The No. 12 (Blaney) was the only one who I felt could win from the bottom, and he almost did.”
Blaney, on the other hand, had to keep passing cars due to losing spots on pit road. Currently, the No. 12 Penske team has lost 88 positions this season so far on pit road alone.
“We’ve got to get better, have to get better for sure,” Blaney said post-race of their pit road woes. “If we’re going to keep competing and have cars that can win the races, we have to clean that up.”
Larson credited the loss of positions by the No. 12 team to helping him, and that had they figured it out, he would’ve been tough to hold off.
“I knew if [Blaney] ever had a good pit stop or even better restart, he’d be tough to hold off. Larson said. “He was flying.”
Chase Elliott spun on lap 477, and Blaney stopped for four tires while Larson stopped for two while Ty Gibbs stayed out. Gibbs held the lead as both Larson and Blaney charged on their newer tires to close in and pass for the win.
The field bunched up again when the final caution came out at lap 498 when Riley Herbst spun and hit the wall in turn 1. That set up overtime. Here, the 23-year-old Gibbs held both of them off for his first career Cup Series win.
Blaney managed to finish second, and Larson had to settle for third.
“I thought I got a really good restart,” Blaney said. “It was really hard to hit it right, and I got a decent first lap. I didn’t get it good in [turns] 1 and 2 on the last lap, but I got a really good [turns] 3 and 4.”
He went on to explain that having a good exit wasn’t enough to get around Gibbs in a close race to the line.
“It just wasn’t quite enough,” Blaney continued. “I’m not going to throttle up and destroy somebody. I just wish I had gotten a better lap, but it was so hard to do.”
Larson, who led more than half the race had dropped to third behind Blaney and Gibbs before the caution, so when exited pit road in sixth, it wasn’t a guarantee that he would be able to make it back to the front.
“When I came off pit road, and five of them stayed out, I was nervous,” Larson said. “I didn’t think I could get to third that quickly, and when I did, I felt like I had a shot. Then I saw [Blaney] behind me, but it worked out — better than I thought, lining up fourth on the outside row.”
But just like Blaney, Larson ran out of time to run down the No. 54 car on the final restart.
Like the ovals NASCAR drivers race on, things come full circle. In a similar fashion to Gibbs winning his first, Blaney also held off a Cup champion when he won his first at Pocono Raceway back in 2017.
“You never forget your first one, that’s for sure,” Blaney said. “Even though we didn’t win, I’m happy for Ty [Gibbs]; I hope they have a good time.”
Why the surprise that old tires survived? Josh Berry proved it earlier. But it was two laps, not 40.