All is right in the NASCAR world if you’re a Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports or Chevrolet fan.
Last weekend, Larson dominated at Kansas Speedway, sweeping the stages and leading a race-high 235 of 267 laps to score his second victory of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. After a winless regular season, Larson has caught fire to start The Chase, with two wins in the first four postseason races.
Entering Kansas with a one-point lead over Denny Hamlin, Larson posted a 76-point afternoon in the Heartland to extend his advantage to 26 over his championship rival. A few months ago, nobody predicted Larson, and specifically Chevrolet, beating Toyota at its own game on the 1.5-mile intermediate tracks.
Larson’s closest competition at any point last weekend was Chase Briscoe, who took the lead away on lap 238 of the 267-lap event.
However, Briscoe couldn’t seal the deal, as lapped traffic and a loose car in the closing laps let Larson mount a final charge and take the lead with six laps remaining.
Contact with the outside wall ruined any last-ditch comeback attempt as Briscoe fell to fourth when the checkered flag flew, giving up second to Austin Cindric and third to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Hamlin in the final laps.
“I got the lead and just started going really, really loose,” Briscoe said. “I had to run the wall to honestly not spin out, and it left me so vulnerable to him being able to get to my left rear.”
“I thought whoever could get out front was going to be strong,” Hamlin explained. “But you gotta give them credit that I thought his balance was very good, for sure. It looked like that’s what they set up for.”
When all was said and done, Larson and his team celebrated in victory lane, while the Toyotas were left scratching their heads, wondering what went wrong.
This could spell trouble for the manufacturer, given how seemingly unbeatable Larson was last weekend, with two mile-and-a-half tracks coming up on the Cup schedule at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Earlier in the season, Toyota’s speed and dominance went unmatched through the first few months of the campaign. After 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick got off to a hot start, winning five of the first nine races, Chevrolet spent much of the following months playing catch-up.
In the five races on intermediate tracks this season, Toyota has won two, with Larson’s Kansas win marking Chevrolet’s third 1.5-mile track win after Chase Elliott’s Texas victory and Daniel Suarez’s win in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600.
After Larson’s dominant performance, expect the Toyota drivers to try to return to their winning ways this weekend as the postseason shifts to Vegas for the second of three intermediate tracks.
In March, Hamlin dominated the race, leading a race-high 134 laps en route to the victory, with Hendrick drivers Elliott and William Byron finishing second and third, respectively, with Larson, a three-time winner at Vegas, seventh.
That weekend, Toyota seemingly had the cars to beat from the time teams hit the track. Additionally, Vegas was the first race in 2026 for Chevrolet teams to really get a feel for how the new Chevrolet body ran on a traditional oval that wasn’t a superspeedway or a road course.
Last fall’s Vegas race, won by Hamlin, seemed to be going in Larson’s favor after leading 129 of the 267 laps. Instead, he settled for second behind Hamlin, who used four fresh tires to rally in the closing laps to take home the win. This time around, the narrative has flipped, with Larson entering the weekend at +350 odds to win, according to DraftKings.
Expect the JGR Toyotas to remain among the contenders this weekend, after winning the last two Vegas races. Meanwhile, Larson is peaking at the right time in his pursuit of back-to-back Cup titles, with a strong postseason start.
If last weekend’s race at Kansas has any indication, Vegas will feature another showdown pitting Larson head-to-head with the Toyotas to see who truly holds the upper hand in this crucial point in the race for a championship.
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