Kyle Larson stumbled through the first two playoff races, crashing through Atlanta and limping out of Watkins Glen without a top-10 finish. The No. 1 seed in the playoffs appeared to be teetering toward the No. 1 NASCAR postseason collapse.
So much for that.
Larson dominated the Bristol Night Race Saturday night, leading the third-most laps in track history (462) and reestablishing himself as a title contender. The No. 5 team took it to them from the jump, passing pole sitter Alex Bowman for the lead on Lap 33 and proceeding to lead every green-flag circuit the rest of the way.
"Just a phenomenal car," Larson said. "Could kind of manage my stuff and then really pass cars."
In doing so, Larson zoomed past the field and hit the Round of 12 reset with a healthy 39-point advantage over ninth-place Austin Cindric. That leaves him well positioned for a Championship 4 run with the next track on the schedule, Kansas Speedway, a place he's won two of the last six times out.
"If I can go to Kansas and do a really good job and get good stage points," Larson explained, "get a good finish, you have a little more comfort going to Talladega."
You know who else is feeling comfortable? Denny Hamlin, a four-time Kansas winner himself. The 43-year-old driver is over a decade older than anyone left in the playoffs and came to Bristol in need of a reset after a disastrous postseason start.
He got it. The March winner at the short track kept track position on a night where passing proved difficult, racking up stage points for a fourth-place finish that ensured he'd advance into the Round of 12. Hamlin was the lone driver to bump someone out, pulling ahead of teammate Ty Gibbs as he and Martin Truex Jr. struggled through pit penalties that ruined their night.
Now? Hamlin has nearly the same odds as everyone else to make it through to the Championship 4. There's one track in each of the next two rounds (Kansas then Martinsville in the Round of 8) where he's just as likely as Larson to reach Victory Lane.
"It's all offense from this point forward," Hamlin said triumphantly. "So yeah, we're going to Kansas, a track we've been really good at, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the run."
It's going to be hard for both drivers to stop Team Penske completely; the defending champs advanced each of their trio into the Round of 12. But during a year where there's been plenty of momentum shifts, veterans Larson and Hamlin are trying to weave through playoff traffic and find themselves peaking at the right time.
"All these races have had so many variables that you can get in trouble really quick," Larson's crew chief Cliff Daniels said. "Which I think is almost a good reality check because it makes you dig that much deeper into finding the ways to go execute. No matter what, that's going to be the focus."
Saturday night, they executed perfectly and put the rest of the playoff field on notice.
Traffic Report
Green: Stewart-Haas Racing. During a blah race at Bristol, SHR stood out as a bright spot. Chase Briscoe's Cinderella playoff story continued with an eighth-place result that advanced him into the next round. Ryan Preece in seventh finished one spot ahead of him, delivering back-to-back top-10 finishes with his No. 41 Ford for the first time all year.
Yellow: Bubba Wallace. A third at Bristol marked the best short-track finish of Wallace's career just days after signing a multi-year extension to remain with Michael Jordan's team. It's just too little, too late for a driver that fell just short of the postseason while teammate Tyler Reddick was regular-season champ.
Red: Harrison Burton. Hard to imagine a worse playoff round for this driver who had a Hail Mary entrance courtesy an unlikely Daytona win. Finishes of 31st, 24th and 35th were bookended this week by news Burton had received a major downgrade: He'll step back to the Xfinity Series next year, running full-time with an AM Racing program that's earned one top-five finish its entire existence.
Speeding Ticket: Goodyear. Bristol came with so much anticipation this year, the spring race one of the best in track history due to excessive tire wear putting pressure on drivers to manage equipment.
On Saturday night? The tires were exceptional. And that created an exceptional problem.
The race went from a whopping 54 lead changes in the spring to just eight over the weekend, the largest race-to-race drop in NASCAR history. Limited tire wear and multiple grooves erased Bristol's bump-and-run, hard-nosed mentality that left it a favorite for fans and drivers alike.
Instead? It was a whole lot of running in place, a fast-paced highway where track position determined the outcome. After a green-flag restart, passing the car in front of you became an incredible ordeal. "We needed," Preece said, "About 75-100 laps before I could start passing."
Add that up and it's nearly 20 percent of the race under green before anyone could start passing cars! It puts NASCAR in a tough spot again with a short track package that's never really taken well to the Next Gen car. And it's why Goodyear needs to be on the hook for the one element the sport can control with this car: a tire that challenges drivers and actually wears out.
Oops!
Not much action at Bristol, a rarity these days leaving this wreck with Corey LaJoie the day's most serious incident. Contact with Josh Berry mid-race slammed his No. 7 Chevrolet in the wall and left him sitting in the garage 36th.
It was a rough way for LaJoie to go out with this Spire team; a rare in-season trade has him moving to the Rick Ware Racing No. 51 starting at Kansas in what's a de facto audition for 2025. RWR's former full-time driver, Justin Haley, will take over LaJoie's spot in the No. 7.
"Lot of great memories…" LaJoie said of his time with Spire, "[and] a lot of lessons learned."