This brought Hendrick Motorsports to the victory lane for the second week running.
Bowman’s win Sunday was his first in the NASCAR season and seventh overall. Rick Hendrick, team owner, won the race in two of three NASCAR races.
Bowman was able to win the race after a caution with three laps left changed the race from a pair Joe Gibbs Racing cars, to Hendrick teammates. The win was won by Kyle Busch, a Las Vegas native, and Martin Truex Jr., his teammate. This match continued until the 12th caution.
Erik Jones lost control of the car after three laps and crashed when he miscalculated. Bubba Wallace had the task of steering hard to avoid drilling Jones’ disabled car. This caused Wallace to crash into an interior wall. NASCAR issued a caution and sent the race into overtime. The leaders then headed to pit road to get a new tire.
Bowman, Larson, and William Byron of the Hendrick trio changed only two tires in order to make it from pit road first to third. Busch, who was the leader of the group, went to the pits with four tires and emerged in fourth.
Larson, the Las Vegas winner, was the winner last week in California. He chose to start on the outside with Bowman on the inside. Over the final laps, the two raced in a drag race. Bowman gained significant speed as he rounded the checkered flag.
Larson was beaten by Bowman who led for 16 laps three times. He won the race by 0.178 seconds.
“This thing was so fast throughout the day. Bowman said that he had never seen the track position that was required to show it and credited crew chief Greg Ives with the two-tire call. Greg Ives made a great call. It paid off, evidently.
TrackHouse Racing’s Ross Chastain was third, while Chevrolet won the podium. Chastain led an unprecedented 83 laps, having led only 75 laps in his 117 previous starts.
Busch was fourth in a backup Toyota after his tire burst during Saturday morning practice. Because backups were scarce at the beginning of NASCAR’s Next Gen model rollout, Busch’s car was destroyed in the wreck. JGR only had a spare car that was not intended for competition.
Hendrick had three drivers in the top five, with Byron being fifth and Aric Almirola sixth. Aric Almirola was the highest-finishing Ford driver. Almirola was the only driver to finish in the top 10 at the NASCAR’s three first races of the season.
Hendrick was proud of the win and attended the weekly competition meeting to discuss his expectations for his drivers following an incident with Chase Elliott and Larson in California. Larson failed to see Elliott from his outside, and he squeezed Elliott into the wall while the two raced for first place.
Elliott was furious, while Larson was understanding. Hendrick ended any drama with the clean overtime racing that won the race between Bowman, Larson.
Bowman stated that “Racing Kyle can be a lot of fun.” “Got to race Kyle for a couple of wins. “We’ve always raced each others very cleanly and respectfully.”
UP NEXT – The Cup Series will next be held at Phoenix Raceway where Truex is defending his race winning title. Larson won the November Cup title.
