Midway through the opening stage at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, most of the NASCAR Cup Series field pitted for fresh tires. Kyle Larson, in Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 Chevrolet, stayed out. The cars that had pitted went by him, he fell a lap down, and he scored no points in either stage, the segments that pay bonus points before the finish. He finished ninth, and his lead fell to 67 points, 10 short of the 77 that would have clinched his third championship with a race to spare. The title will be decided next Sunday, Nov. 8, at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
William Byron, Larson's teammate at Hendrick, won the race in the No. 24 Chevrolet. He led 362 of the 500 laps and beat Chase Elliott, another Hendrick teammate, in the No. 9, by 2.049 seconds for his first Cup win of the season.
That leaves him 67 points ahead of Christopher Bell and 70 ahead of Denny Hamlin, who drive the No. 20 and No. 11 Toyotas for Joe Gibbs Racing. They are the only two drivers who can still catch him at Homestead. Nine points there clinches the title for Larson, according to NASCAR, and a 28th-place finish would give him nine.
"Yeah, I'm surprised that it's that good," Larson said of the gap.
Byron took the lead on lap 125 and won the 130-lap opening stage. Hamlin, who started on the pole, stayed out with Larson, and on older tires neither could hold his pace, according to NASCAR.
"Just really came down to stage one with us running the no-stop strategy," Hamlin said. "Lost all of our track position there."
"We were just on the wrong side of the strategy," Larson said. "I think kind of just playing off Denny, probably mostly Denny, but I'm sure the 19 as well." The No. 19 is the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Chase Briscoe.
Bell did pit early, ran in the top 10 for much of the early race and was fourth at the end of the first stage. When a caution came out while he was on pit road, NASCAR caught him speeding, and he restarted 14th instead of near the front. A few laps later, slight contact from Joey Logano's No. 22 Team Penske Ford sent Bell into Hamlin, and the caution that followed gave Larson his lap back.
All three finished in the top 10 after a final green-flag run of 230 laps, which NASCAR called the longest "in nearly 40 years." Hamlin, who led 40 laps, was sixth, Larson ninth and Bell 10th.
Byron led the last 75 laps and worked his way through lapped cars while Elliott chased him. "He closed down to like a second there at one point," Byron said. Ty Gibbs, in Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 54 Toyota, finished third.
Byron won both stages and scored 76 points, the most a driver can score in one race. Only seven cars finished on the lead lap. The 362 laps were the most he has led in a Cup race. Early in the second stage, Bell said, his crew chief told him on the radio that Byron was running at part throttle. "I'm at 100%, he's at 80%," Bell said.
It was Byron's fourth win at Martinsville and the 17th of his Cup career.
The No. 24 had come to Martinsville winless through the season's first 34 races. "You just kind of wake up every Sunday thinking, Man, all right, are we going to get it turned around today or what?" Byron said. This week, he said, the team went to the simulator and decided not to change much: "I wish the answer was more complicated."
His crew chief, Rudy Fugle, said he gave Byron more information than usual over the radio on the last run to keep him calm. "He's also a really good duck," Fugle said. "Sits on top of the water, very calm looking. He's kind of busy under there sometimes."
The Chase, NASCAR's 16-driver, 10-race championship playoff, has one race left. From NASCAR's unofficial points sheet:
- Kyle Larson, 2,469 points
- Christopher Bell, 67 behind
- Denny Hamlin, 70 behind
Bell gained seven points on Larson, and Hamlin gained three. Four other drivers who came in with a chance were eliminated. Briscoe, 79 back coming in, scored no stage points, finished 14th and is 84 behind, more than the 76 points a driver can score in one race. Logano finished 18th, Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing 12th and Ryan Blaney, Logano's Penske teammate, 35th.
"I absolutely will feel some pressure this week," Larson said. "I know it's a large gap. Crazy things can happen."
The Cup Series championship race at Homestead-Miami starts at 3 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 8, on NBC.