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Kyle Larson credited his fellow Chevrolet drivers and remembered the 2004 Hendrick Motorsports plane crash after Larson’s first Talladega win on Sunday, as the drivers around him at the finish described a final lap none of them saw coming.
Larson took the white flag in the lead of Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, fell back to about 10th, then came back on the bottom with a push from Ross Chastain to beat William Byron to the line by 0.041 seconds. Here is what the top finishers said after the race.
Kyle Larson, first
“What a day. Just can’t really say enough about it. We had so much help from our Chevy teammates throughout the whole field, all day long, and it really allowed us to just feel like I was on offense,” Larson said.
“That last lap got crazy. Austin Hill was doing an amazing job pushing me, and he was just on me really tight in (turns) 1 and 2. I just didn’t feel confident to turn my hands, and it just kind of wandered me up the track. He was able to get underneath me, and I thought it was over for me right there.”
Larson also pointed to the plane crash that killed 10 people connected to Hendrick Motorsports on October 24, 2004. “It’s been 22 years since that terrible plane crash that took so many loved ones from Hendrick Motorsports. I really felt like they were riding with us there on that last lap to get this win.”
On his 73-point Chase lead, he said: “I did not expect to have the point lead that I had when I got out of the car. I thought I’d be in the 40s, maybe 50s, which is still amazing. But a 73-point lead is incredible.”
William Byron, second
“Second sucks, but it’s good that Kyle won. We worked really well together all day. If I couldn’t win, I wanted him to win,” Byron said. “I thought I made the right one, and then out of nowhere, here came someone on the bottom and it was the No. 5, so I’m happy for those guys.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., third
“I just never saw (Larson) coming. I was focused on (Byron), and by the time [I] realized (Larson) was coming from five or six positions back, I just wasn’t able to get down and block him,” Stenhouse said. “Just one wrong move there at the end, trying to block (Byron), we gave the race to (Larson).”
Ross Chastain, fourth
Chastain said a mistake on his first pit stop left him stuck a lap down for much of the day. On the last lap, he said, his spotter, Brandon McReynolds, “just called to push the No. 5. I’m thankful he did it because he could see a lot better than I can, and I’m glad that a Chevrolet won.”
Cole Custer, fifth
“He just came out of nowhere on that trioval, I’m guessing with the No. 1 car (Ross Chastain) pushing him,” Custer said. He said the top five meant a lot to his No. 41 team after its switch to Chevrolet this season.
Todd Gilliland, seventh
“I was really, really wishing I had at least a little bit of Ford horsepower behind me there,” Gilliland said. “Seriously, I don’t even know where he came from. I think we all just kind of got jammed up.”
Denny Hamlin, eighth
Hamlin, now second in points, 73 behind Larson, raced on with damage from the Lap 132 crash. “It knocked some front toe damage in it. Obviously, the body too. It was a handful, but it was at least serviceable. It wasn’t undrivable.”
What’s next
The Cup Series races next at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia, on Sunday, November 1, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC. “Hopefully, we can go to Martinsville and have a good day and then just close it out,” Larson said.
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