LONG POND, PA.: Adversity ultimately proved to be no match for Kyle Larson and his Hendrick Motorsports team after finishing second in Sunday’s Explore the Pocono Mountains 350 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.
Larson started at the rear of the field after going to a backup car after crashing on the last lap while leading in Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono and immediately found challenges in his opportunity to win his fifth victory of the season.
Early in Stage 1, Larson made contact with another driver which significantly damaged the nose of his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE – and while the damage seemed to keep him at bay mid-pack throughout most of Stage 1, excellent repair work by his No. 5 team led by crew chief Cliff Daniels kept Larson in the fight.
Despite some handling woes throughout Stage 2, Larson continued to make progress and climbed to eighth when the stage ended.
Knowing he was probably lacking the speed to win because of the superficial damage to his automobile, Daniels opted for a different strategy to keep his driver in contention and keep Hendrick Motorsports in Victory Lane.
Throughout Stage 3, Larson maintained his pace and opted to make a green-flag pit stop when the fuel window opened hoping to jam enough Sunoco fuel to keep Larson on track in a race that opted for a long-green flag run.
Through patience and coaching from Daniels and spotter Tyler Monn – Larson was able to save enough fuel to get to the checkered flag – but was unable to keep the Hendrick Motorsports dominance intact – finishing 8.654 seconds behind winner Kyle Busch.
“It’s (a) surprising finish for us,” said Larson. “Our HendrickCars.com Chevy was really loose for a majority of the race, then we got a lot of nose damage there on one of the restarts. Was off on speed. I felt like after that.
“Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) and everybody did a really, really good job managing the race, coached me through saving fuel there at the end. Was hoping that the 18 (Kyle Busch) was going to run out. I saw the 11 (Denny Hamlin) running out. I was, Okay, they’re teammates, they got to be close to running out.
“The 18 did pit a lap after us under caution. That actually probably won them the race. But, yeah, second-place finish, I thought we would be outside of the top-20. A lot of points throughout the race today; we’ll take it. Happy about the effort for sure all weekend.”
With all the obstacles Larson faced on Sunday, he was still in disbelief that he had such a productive finish on Sunday, but credited Daniels for keeping his head in the game through the highs and lows of the 140-lap race.
“Seemed like every point of the race, everything that happened in the race, nothing went my way. Restarts, just guys messing up in front of me, me getting shuffled out of the groove, bad lane choices on my part, everything didn’t go my way,” added Larson.
“Cliff did a really good job keeping my head in it, coached me through saving fuel. Yeah, I mean, I had a lot of hope there at the end thinking that the 18 might run out.”
Despite a ninth and a second place finish in Long Pond, Larson leaves the “Tricky Triangle” second in the championship standings, just three points from leader Denny Hamlin heading to the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Road America (Wisc.) on July 4.
Larson stretched his Playoff points to 32 over the doubleheader weekend, now 19 points ahead of his next closest competitor of Martin Truex Jr. with just seven races left in the regular season which concludes at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in August.
Despite having to reset his winning streak, the Elk Grove, Calif. native maintains an average finishing position of 2.5 over the last eight points-paying NASCAR Cup Series races.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
