By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

BRISTOL, TN. (April 13, 2025) – He did it for Jon.

For the second straight day at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kyle Larson dominated a NASCAR race and dedicated the victory to friend and PR representative Jon Edwards, who passed away suddenly during the week leading up to the race weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.

On Sunday, Larson won the Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series race in overwhelming fashion, leading 411 of 500 laps and sweeping both stages.

The victory was Larson’s second of the season, his second straight at the 0.533-mile high-banked short track and the 31st of his career, and it came one day after the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet ran away with the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Thunder Valley.

“This one’s definitely for Jon,” said Larson, who finished second in Friday night’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race, one spot short of sweeping the weekend. “He’s just a great guy. Successful weekend here. Wish he was going to be here with us to celebrate, but I know he’s celebrating with us in spirit.

“Just a flawless race once again here at Bristol for the 5 team. Really, really good car. That was a lot of fun.”

Larson, who brushed the outside wall at the apex of Turns 1 and 2 with five laps left—without consequence—finished 2.250 seconds in front of Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, who fell one spot short of a third straight Cup victory. Hamlin’s teammate, Ty Gibbs, was 6.679 seconds back in third in a race that ran without caution for the final 235 laps.

“However many laps of green we ran there was a lot of fun,” Larson said. “I was pretty comfortable with things, and then Denny came on really strong there before the pit cycle and kind of kept the pressure on from there.”

After the final pit stops, Hamlin could close within a second of Larson in traffic but never threatened to take the lead.

“You have to give that team their due—just a dominant performance,” Hamlin said. “It looked like a pretty flawless day for them. It looked pretty easy. It was all I had to try to keep up there. I’m glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run with our Progressive Toyota.

“But this weekend, we are all thinking about Jon Edwards’ family, (racing journalist) Al Pearce, (team owner) Shige Hattori (all of whom passed away within the last eight days). We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over the last week, so our thoughts are with them.”

“Wish we could have got one more spot, but I just wanted to keep him honest there at the end. That was all I was trying to do, but he was a little too much to handle.”

Hamlin and Larson have finished 1-2 on seven occasions. Sunday’s race was the first of the seven times Larson has come out on top.

Contrary to strong indications from Saturday’s practice, Bristol’s concrete surface rubbered in, and tire wear was not the factor that most teams and drivers anticipated. Ryan Blaney, for instance, ran 175 laps on one set of tires before pitting on Lap 440.

Chase Briscoe came home fourth, as JGR claimed the three positions behind Larson. Blaney ran long during the final green-flag run, led 48 laps after Larson pitted on Lap 390 for tires and fuel and worked his way back to fifth at the end.

Pole winner Alex Bowman led the first 39 laps before Larson grabbed the top spot for the first time. Larson went to win the first stage over Hamlin and the second over Bowman, who later fell out of the race when his engine expired.

The Stage 2 victory was the 66th of Larson’s career, tying him with Martin Truex Jr for the most since stage racing was introduced in 2017.

William Byron charged forward to a sixth-place finish after starting 26th. Ross Chastain ran seventh, followed by Christopher Bell and AJ Allmendinger, the last driver on the lead lap. Austin Dillon was 10th, the first driver one lap down.

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

BRISTOL, TN (April 12, 2025) Pole winner Kyle Larson brought a bazooka to Saturday’s shootout at Bristol Motor Speedway.

His 37 opponents brought pea shooters to the Last Great Coliseum—or so it seemed, given the degree of domination Larson exhibited in winning the SciAps 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race.

The driver of the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet led 277 of 300 laps in securing his first victory in two series starts this season, his second at Bristol and the 16th of his career. At the finish, there were only 12 cars on the lead lap.

Larson finished 2.054 seconds ahead of Carson Kvapil, who passed series leader Justin Allgaier for second place in traffic on Lap 298. Allgaier held third and collected his record seventh $100,000 Xfinity Dash 4 Cash bonus as the highest finisher among four eligible drivers.

To Larson, the victory was a fitting tribute to his friend and PR representative, Jon Edwards, who passed away suddenly during the week leading up to the Bristol race weekend.

“It’s awesome,” said Larson, who finished second in Friday night’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race. “I wish I could have won last night—just came up a little bit short. It’s cool to get a win this weekend for Jon and everybody’s who’s been a part of his life.”

“We’ve got one more tomorrow (in Sunday’s Food City 500 NASCAR Cup race). There’d be nothing better than to cap it off with a Cup win for Jon and all of Hendrick Motorsports… I’ve got a great car there for (Sunday). We’ve just got to execute like we did today.”

Kvapil matched his career-best finish, having run second at Dover last year. His No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was at its best in the closing laps.

“We just kept working on it and made it better and better every pit stop,” Kvapil said. “I felt like toward the end we had a pretty fast car, but there was just so much traffic, it was hard to really get into a good rhythm.”

Sammy Smith ran fourth, as JR Motorsports drivers took the three positions behind Larson and locked into Dash for Cash eligibility for next Saturday’s race at Rockingham, along with fifth-place finisher Brandon Jones of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Larson was cruising to a wire-to-wire victory in the first stage, having lapped Jeb Burton in the 14th position, when Sheldon Creed’s Ford spun sideways off Turn 4 after a bump from Dean Thompson’s Toyota.

Charging through the corner behind the spin, Brennan Poole couldn’t avoid Creed’s car, and his Chevrolet collided with Creed’s Mustang in a vicious crash that destroyed both machines and eliminated two of the four eligible Dash 4 Cash drivers from the race.

Both drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center. “For Brennan’s sake, it happens so quick,” Creed said. “And I was sitting right there in the middle of the track.”

NASCAR red-flagged the race for 14 minutes 8 seconds, and Larson lost the 3.4-second lead he held over second-place Justin Allgaier and the advantage of more than 10 seconds over Connor Zilisch in third.

After the red flag was lifted, Larson and Allgaier paced the lead-lap cars to pit road—with the exceptions of Sam Mayer and Ryan Sieg, who stayed on the track and finished 1-2 in Stage 1 after a three-lap dash that ended on Lap 85.

Larson finished third in Stage 1, and after Mayer and Sieg pitted during the break, Larson regained the top spot for a restart on Lap 97. The clinic continued, with Larson winning Stage 2—his 17th stage win in the series—by nearly nine seconds over Allgaier.

After pit stops and wave-arounds, 16 drivers took the green flag for the final stage on the lead lap, and Allgaier snatched the top spot from Larson moments after the Lap 182 restart.

It didn’t last. Ten circuits later, Larson gave Allgaier’s Chevy a bump in Turn 1, moved him up the track and shot past into the lead.

Allgaier kept Larson within shouting range until the lapped car of Mason Massey blocked Allgaier’s line off Turn 4 and turned sideways near the start/finish line after contact between the Camaros.

Collected in the incident and eliminated from the race was the Toyota of William Sawalich, who had been running in the top 10.

For Allgaier, the Dash 4 Cash bonus was something of a consolation prize.

“I’m just bummed about the day a little bit, to come out of here in third,” he said. “You know, I had the mistake there with the lapped car, and I wish it had gone green, because it probably would have helped us…

“But to lock three of the four (JR Motorsports drivers) into the next Dash 4 Cash is huge. I got out front there, and I just felt like we needed a little bit more to keep up with Kyle. He was obviously really good, and his pace in traffic was phenomenal.”

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

BRISTOL, TN (April 11, 2025) – After charging into the lead in Friday night’s Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Chandler Smith’s work was far from over.

The driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford then had to hold off NASCAR Cup Series moonlighter Kyle Larson over a seven-lap dash to the finish to claim his first NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series victory of the season, his second at the 0.533-mile short track and the sixth of his career.

Smith also won the $50,000 Triple Truck Challenge bonus that goes to the highest-finishing NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series regular.

Smith’s victory by 0.934 seconds over Larson ended the latter’s quest for a weekend sweep of NASCAR’s three national series races. Even though Larson had 27-lap fresher tires than the race winner for a restart on Lap 244 of 250, he could do no better than second.

“I’m more excited for the team than I am for myself,” said Smith, whose tenure in No. 38 F-150 came in an 11th-hour deal at season’s end. “This group came together—we hired my crew chief (Jon Leonard) two weeks before Daytona…

“My life’s been really, really crazy recently, and there were a lot of unknowns about my future going into the season, and we kind of had our backs against the wall putting this group together like I said. But holy (crap), I wouldn’t want any different of a group than I had behind me.”

Smith grabbed the lead from eventual third-place finisher Corey Heim just before a caution flag flew on Lap 237 for Andres Perez’s spin on the backstretch. That gave Smith control of the race for the final restart, and he promptly asserted himself from the top lane.

After overcoming a tight handling condition in the second stage and a pit road speeding penalty at the stage break, Larson took the green flag behind Smith on Lap 243 and quickly passed Heim for second, but the driver of the No. 07 Spire Motorsports couldn’t catch Smith, despite trying different lines around the concrete oval.

“We fell back on that long run in the second stage—got super tight,” said Larson, who pitted on Lap 162 for fresh rubber after putting 27 laps on the tires he got on Lap 135 during the stage break. “Then I sped on pit road, but on that next stop, I think that probably helped us…

“We had a little bit of an advantage to get toward the front. I thought it would be more of an advantage than it was. But still, I think it was a benefit to our race… Still, to get to second is good.”

The second place finish was not good enough to keep Larson’s hope of the weekend sweep alive, however, he’ll have two more chances at victory this weekend with Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race and Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.

Tyler Ankrum ran fourth, followed by Ben Rhodes. Bayley Currey picked up the first stage win of his career in Stage 2 before falling out with transmission trouble 13 laps from the finish.

Smith led twice for a race-high 127 laps, followed by Rajah Caruth, who was out front for 85 circuits on a contrary tire strategy.

Reigning series champion Ty Majeski was eliminated in a Lap 53 crash involving Frankie Muniz, Stewart Friesen and Brandon Jones.

Heim leads Smith by 18 points in the series standings, with Majeski 57 points back in third.