Alex Bowman victorious, Kyle Busch foiled in winning effort by Hendrick

By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer

LAS VEGAS — Kyle Busch was ready to cap a from-the-rear-to-the-win story when a caution with less than three laps remaining resulted in another driver writing a similar tale Sunday.

Alex Bowman, who had to drop to the rear of the field around the midway point of the race after a pit-stop violation, found himself second for the two-lap overtime shootout to the finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He then outdueled Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson for the Pennzoil 400 win.

Bowman, Larson, Ross Chastain, Busch and William Byron were the top five.

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Here are three takeaways from Vegas:

Big Bowman win

With Larson, Bowman and Byron — all Hendrick Motorsports drivers — taking two tires on that final pit stop, they were able to keep Busch from making a run despite the fresher tires.

It wasn’t a coordinated effort by Hendrick teams, but it worked out well. However, Bowman wasn’t all that confident that he could outrun Larson, the 2021 Cup champion and winner of 11 races in the past 36 events, as well as Busch, who appeared to have the best car late in the race.

Larson chose the top lane for the restart, leaving Bowman the bottom. (Larson typically prefers the top lane.)

"Restart on the front row second to arguably the greatest race car driver of our generation?" Bowman said. "Tall task there. ... Racing Kyle is hard. 

"He's so good. I just felt like when he took the top, I was way more confident. The bottom was where I wanted to be. It was where my car worked the best."

Bowman’s two-lap run was solid, especially with a car that had led just 13 laps earlier in the race.

"I’m proud of this guy," team co-owner Jeff Gordon said afterward. "It was an awesome job by Alex Bowman driving the wheels off that thing."

Disappointing end for Busch

Busch had led 49 laps before choosing to take four tires, which he thought was the right call until he got a little boxed out by the three Hendrick cars on the restart.

"There was three of them, which plugged up the front row, which gave them a shot to go race for a win on a green-white-checkered," Busch said.

"They had the right strategy. They did the right thing to block out the rest of the competition behind them. I thought I had a shot. I thought four [fresh tires] would prevail. But obviously not."

Busch had used a backup car, which his team spent nine hours preparing the day before, following a crash in practice that was the result of a flat tire. Busch quipped that backup cars should be as good as the main cars because "they’re all the same — they’re bought at Walmart" in a reference to all the teams using the same parts and pieces.

But fourth was still way better than where Busch started in 37th.

"It wasn’t meant to be," he said. "Not our day. See you next week."

Big day for Chastain

Chastain won the first stage in Trackhouse Racing history and led 83 laps Sunday. He lost the lead with 40 laps remaining when he was a little tentative on a green-flag pit stop, trying not to make any mistakes. 

But a third-place run was still a good day.

"This is what all the work is for," he said. "This is why we train and try to build our whole lives and careers, once we realize we can race at this level, is to have race cars like that. I couldn’t be more proud."

Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!