Kyle Larson makes a statement with dominant win on 'home track'

Published

By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer

SONOMA, Calif. – You've probably read this before: Kyle Larson won with a dominant performance.

A week after leading 327 of 400 laps on the 1.5-mile oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Larson led 57 of 92 laps on the 2.52-mile road course at Sonoma Raceway as he won back-to-back Cup races for the first time in his career.

Just as he did in Charlotte, Larson crossed the finish line Sunday ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott.

"It was just an unbelievable race car, which it has been all year long," Larson said after his third victory this year. "We just now finally have been able to get some wins to show for it."

The victory was the first road-course win for Larson, who grew up about 90 minutes away in the Sacramento suburb Elk Grove.

"Even though I didn’t grow up coming here a bunch, it is still my home track," he said. "I have spent a lot of time in the Napa Valley. ... Napa Valley is close to me, for sure."

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Here are my three takeaways from Sonoma:

Larson closing in on Hamlin  

Larson trailed NASCAR Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin by 144 points five races ago, but after three runners-up finishes and two victories, he has cut that margin to 47 points with 10 races left in the regular season.

The regular-season champion earns 15 playoff points, and second place earns 10, which can have a big impact in the postseason, as those points could determine whether a driver advances if he struggles in the playoff rounds.

In the past two races, Larson has earned maximum points by sweeping the stages (10 regular-season points are rewarded for each stage win) and winning the race.

"He hasn’t had any bad races ... but we have had a few really good weeks where we have won stages and won the race the last couple of weeks, and we have taken huge chunks out of it," Larson said of Hamlin. "It’s definitely a goal of mine to get those 15 bonus playoff points."

Larson crew chief Cliff Daniels said the team is not so focused on the points it needs to cut into Hamlin’s lead each week.

"Having the distraction of thinking we need to achieve a certain amount of points per event, we're just not really going there right now," Daniels said. "We're keeping all of our focus just on what it takes to go execute every week."

On the other end of the grid, Chris Buescher leads Matt DiBenedetto by 60 points for the last spot in the 16-driver playoff field. Currently, 11 drivers have wins, and a win automatically qualifies a driver for the playoffs, as long as there aren't more winners than spots available.

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Truex denied three-peat

Martin Truex Jr. won the two previous visits to Sonoma in 2018 and 2019, but he had nothing for the Hendrick cars on Sunday, especially on short runs, and settled for third.

There were four restarts in the final 18 laps of the race.

"My only chance was really long runs," Truex said. "Once we started getting those cautions [at the end], we were up against an uphill battle."

Ganassi bounces back  

After a week in which Chip Ganassi Racing saw engine belts snap, resulting in the team finishing in the last two spots at Charlotte, Ganassi teammates Kurt Busch and Ross Chastain finished sixth and seventh at Sonoma.

It was a nice comeback for the organization that gets its engines from Hendrick Motorsports, which apologized earlier in the week for the issue.  

"To be in the mix and have the right strategy and have a smooth day, we’ll take it, and we're going to build on it," Busch said.

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!