CONCORD, N.C. – Looking to join Kyle Busch as the second driver to sweep the Coca-Cola 600 in the stage racing era, Kyle Larson won his third straight stage as night fell Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Leading 78 of the 100 laps in the segment, Larson took the green-and-white checkered flag under caution after Ryan Newman blew a right-front tire and pounded the wall in turn three at lap 296.
Larson commanded the penultimate quarter of NASCAR’s longest race, grabbing the top spot off the restart at lap 208 and only briefly giving up command once under green-flag conditions to teammate William Byron.
A cycle of pit stops was just what the doctor ordered for the No. 5 Chevrolet, however, as Larson retook the point on lap 253 and paced the final 48 laps of the stage for his ninth stage win this season.
It was the 27th stage victory of Larson’s Cup Series career, tying him with Joey Logano for fifth all time.
William Byron, who passed Larson to lead laps 231 through 247 before the green-flag pit cycle kicked off, was the stage runner-up over Joe Gibbs Racing’s Busch, with the other two Hendrick Motorsports drivers filling out the top five in Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman.
Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Bubba Wallace, and Kevin Harvick closed out the top 10 and all scored bonus points during the third stage break of the 600-mile classic.
Newman’s incident marked just the second caution for cause in Sunday’s race and fourth yellow flag overall.
Through 300 laps, 11 drivers have exchanged the lead 18 times.
Following the pit stop cycle at the stage break, Busch came off pit road second and hopes to have something with which to challenge Larson down the home stretch of the race.
“I’m gonna have to wreck him!” Busch quipped when asked how he can pass Larson and win his second Coca-Cola 600. “He’s too fast, I don’t know. … We’ve been working on our car and I feel really good about it. We’ll just have to see what we can get in the final 100 [laps].”
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