Larson goes 2 for 3 at Homestead after winning NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk 400

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Two out of three not only ain’t bad, it’s pretty darned good for a NASCAR weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Kyle Larson passed Hendrick Motorsports teammate and polesitter Alex Bowman with six laps left and took Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 NASCAR Cup Series race two days after taking the Baptist Health 200 Craftsman Truck Series race. And, Larson did it with a hole in the left side of his car over the last 180 laps.

But for a late yellow and bad restart in Saturday’s Hard Rock Bet 300 Xfinity Series race, Larson would’ve pulled off the Homestead hat trick.

“Honestly, right now, I don’t think about that at all,” Larson said Sunday evening. “I wasn't thinking about it as I took the lead. Yeah, I was pretty disappointed all of the time after the race (Saturday). But, I woke up this morning feeling for the most part, fine. Motivated, but fine. Kind of over the finish of (Saturday).

“I’m sure when I lay down tonight, I’ll probably think about it. I’m just happy to get a Cup Series win. They’re so tough to get.”

As third-place finisher Bubba Wallace said Saturday, Larson’s NASCAR’s best driver at riding the wall at Homestead, which tends to be the fastest line, especially in the last two corners. Larson skated on that edge again Sunday to chase down Bowman at the end for his first win of the season, keeping his Chevrolet within an envelope of the wall when he wasn’t kissing it or scraping it.

Bowman and Wallace each had his best finish at Homestead. Chase Briscoe finished fourth with Denny Hamlin fifth. As far as the points standings, Hendrick cars now run Nos. 1 (William Byron), 2 (Larson) and 3 (Bowman).

Sunday closed a weekend trio of races that taunted each event’s preeminent driver-car combination with yet another reminder that, in motor sports, there’s no such thing as “home free” until you’re actually under the checkered flag.

Friday, Polesitter Corey Heim owned the Baptist Health 200 Craftsman Truck Series race, leading 78 laps and leading even though his car began cutting off repeatedly in the last 20 laps. That happened one too many times, however, and Heim retreated to third as Larson completed a breathtaking late comeback from three seconds down and passed Layne Riggs for the win.

Larson did the dominating during Saturday’s Xfinity Series race, leading 132 laps and building a ridiculous half-lap lead until a spin brought out a yellow flag with eight laps left. On the restart, Larson chose the low line and Sam Mayer accelerated into Larson’s rear. That bump let Justin Allgaier and Austin Hill run on the high line, and an unusually furious Larson wound up fourth behind winner Allgaier, Mayer and Hill.

Sunday, Blaney left empty after leading 124 of the first 161 laps after Miami Dolphins outside linebacker and race grand marshal Bradley Chubb gave the “start your engines!” command, Chubb’s most action at a Miami sports event since 2023 after missing the entire 2024 Dolphins’ season with injury.

Running third behind Bubba Wallace and Larson after a mishap in the pits, Blaney’s engine blew up coming out of Turn 4. Hours after the firefighters completely contained the nearby South Miami-Dade brush fire, smoke enveloped Homestead-Miami Speedway’s front straightaway.

Sunday also completed the first three-race run of DNFs (Did Not Finish) in Cup races for Blaney.

“It just stinks,” Blaney said on the FS1 broadcast. “It was going to be a great race between me, Bubba, Larson and I’m sure Denny (Hamlin) was going to get back into it.”

From his sixth starting position, Blaney jumped up to battle Bowman and front row starter Josh Berry. Blaney dismissed Berry for second place on Lap 3, then did the same to Bowman on Lap 6 and began running alone toward the back of the field.

Before Christopher Bell spun to bring out the race’s first yellow flag on lap 69, Blaney built a 7-second lead. The bunch up and restart couldn’t prevent Blaney from winning Stage 1.

Meanwhile, after an evening joining his 10-year-old son Owen fishing in the track pond and other father-son hanging out (the full family didn’t come to Homestead), Larson woke up feeling Saturday’s disappointment somewhat cleansed from his system.

Somewhat.

“Definitely extra motivated and given past history (at Homestead), I wanted to just take the green flag and kick everybody’s (behind) today,” Larson said. “I wanted to get the lead early and dominate the way I did (Saturday). Then, the green flag flew and it was the opposite. I was going backwards.”

So, after 10 laps, Larson dispensed with what he called “an immature mindset” and settled in for a 400-mile grind that got harder when Berry put a hole in his car.

The race starts to turn during Stage 2

On lap 84, Berry left his pit and hit Larson on the driver’s side, then careened into a spin that collected Joey Logano. This ended with Larson on the track with a hole in his left side, and Logano and Berry in their respective pit boxes but facing the wrong way. That removed Berry, last week’s winner in Las Vegas, and Logano from serious contention.

Crew Chief Cliff Daniels said, “There’s a vent in front of the exhaust exit on the rocker panel. The vent was knocked out and a hole was opened up, which I knew was going to be bad for downforce and for speed. to be honest, on my end, I was kind of late in processing the information from the pictures I was getting and what our plan of attack could be to fix it.”

Eventually, the team decided against giving up track position to fix the problem. They’d race with the hole.

Blaney continued to run up front until just past the midway point, when Larson’s and Hamlin’s strategies of pitting late in the pit cycles began paying off as they were able to attack with fresher tires. Once Blaney encountered traffic, Hamlin and Larson finished catching him and both got around him on Lap 161.

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