Kyle Larson scored his second NASCAR Nationwide Series win of the year and of his career at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Saturday afternoon in the HISTORY 300.
The 21-year old Larson checked out on the field following the final caution of the 200-Lap event, finishing ahead of Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Brian Scott.
Larson, a development driver for Chip Ganassi Racing recorded his first career win earlier in the year at Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway in a dynamite battle with Busch, but Saturday’s race at the 1.5-mile showed that Larson was the dominate car. Carrying the ENEOS colors for the first time in 2014, Larson making a breathtaking move, took the lead from Keselowski on Lap 118 and held it for 26 laps before green flag pit stops began.
Through the cycle, Larson reassumed the lead from James Buescher on Lap 145 to withstand the third caution of the race on Lap 171 for debris. During the yellow, the nine lead lap cars pitted with Larson’s Turner Scott Motorsports bunch keeping him ahead of the competition.
On the Lap 175 restart, Larson withstood a slight challenge from Keselowski and Busch, but pulled away from the competition to earn his Turner Scott Motorsports their second win of the year. It was Larson’s third win in NASCAR’s top-three series.
“It was about perfect for us,” said Larson. “This ENEOS Chevrolet was great from the time we rolled off the truck Thursday. I knew we had a good piece, but not that good. We were pretty dominate for there for the last half of that race. I was worried on that last restart, because we weren’t very good on short runs and extremely good on long runs, but it was good from the start and that was great. I love Charlotte and we’ll be trying to get a 600 win tomorrow (Sunday).”
When talking about his race-winning move, “I thought, if I could catch Brad in a bad spot in traffic, I could use it (the high line) to my advantage, and that’s kind of what happened,” Larson said. “I saw a lot of lapped traffic ahead of us, and he had yet to try the top, or as high as I was going.
“He got kind of hung up behind them, and I had a clear lane up above. It may not have looked that clear on TV, but there was quite a bit of room up there for me. It was a pretty awesome move… That was kind of the move of the race.”
Before Larson took command of the race, pole sitter Kyle Busch led the field to green and did so through the first pit stops, which began following the first caution flag of the afternoon on Lap 25, when Ryan Sieg spun in Turn 2.
Inheriting the lead from Jeremy Clements, who elected to stay out to lead a lap, Busch found himself in a torrid battle with Matt Kenseth, with the No. 20 GameStop Toyota Camry soaring to the point on Lap 29 and led through green flag pit stops, which began on Lap 78.
Kenseth went to pit road on Lap 83 handing the lead to Brad Keselowski for one lap, before reclaiming the lead on Lap 85. The race would be slowed for the second time on Lap 88, when Chase Elliott had a mechanical failure in Turn 3 and tagged the wall.
A majority of the field stayed out during the yellow with Kenseth continuing to lead through Lap 96, when Keselowski positioned himself back into the lead. He would retain that spot until Lap 117 when Larson wheeled his No. 42 ENEOS Chevrolet Camaro to the top-spot and led the remaining 82 of 83 laps.
Keselowski finished 1.480 seconds behind Larson and noted that his fellow Sprint Cup driver was the class of the field.
“We had a good run, but just came up a little bit short,” the former Nationwide champion said. “The 42 car was very strong at the end and we just didn’t have quite enough to run with him. We led laps and ran in the top three all day, so that’s a solid effort but not the win we’re looking for, but still nothing to shake your fist at.”
Kenseth fell to seventh at the end ahead of Trevor Bayne, Chris Buescher and Ty Dillon to round out the top-10.
Other notables inside the top-20: James Buescher (11th); Elliott Sadler (12th); Dylan Kwasniewski (13th); Jeb Burton (15th); Johnny Sauter (16th); Ross Chastain (18th) and Mike Bliss (20th).
Kwasniewski bounced off the wall early in the race and mounted a nice recovery in the No. 31 Rockstar Energy Chevrolet Camaro, a second Turner Scott Motorsports (TSM) entry and teammate to Larson.
Chase Elliott, whose worst finish of the year was 19th heading into Charlotte went to the garage following in tango with the Turn 3 wall. He later returned to the track and finished 37th and fell to third in the championship standings.
Tanner Berryhill finished 40th on Saturday afternoon making a bad day go worse after the team struggled to get their No. 17 NationalCashLenders.com Dodge through technical inspection. A relentless effort by the team put them on the grid for the race after missing qualifying. Berryhill climbed through the field, but fell victim to electrical troubles and exited the field with 81 Laps completed.
Regan Smith took the points lead from his JR Motorsports teammate and holds a slim five point margin over Elliott Sadler in second. Elliott is third (-25), Bayne fourth (-35) and Dillon fifth (-36).
Next up for the NASCAR Nationwide Series is the running of the Buckle-Up 200 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway on Saturday, May 31.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
