Kyle Larson dominated the final stage of the race Sunday at Auto Club Speedway and held the field at bay through a series of late restarts, winning the Cup Series event to complete a weekend sweep on the two-mile Southern California oval. Larson followed Saturday’s X-finity Series victory by leading a race-high 110 laps, including 64 of the 82 that were run during the last of the day’s three stages. His margin of victory over runner-up Brad Keselowski was 0.77 of a second. Clint Bowyer finished third with Martin Truex, Jr. and Joey Logano completing the top five. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Daniel Suarez was the highest-finishing rookie, in 7th place.
Larson’s win comes on the heels of three straight 2nd place finishes this season that had lifted him to the top of the series standings. He’s opened a 29 point lead over Chase Elliott heading into the first short-track race of the season next weekend at Martinsville Speedway. Elliott finished tenth in yesterday’s Auto Club 400.
Larson is just the second driver to win a Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway after starting from the pole since the track first hosted NASCAR in 1997. Jimmie Johnson started first and finished first in 2008. The 7-time champion was looking for back-to-back Fontana victories on Sunday but finished only 21st.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. made his 600th career start and placed 16th in the 39-car field. He failed to lead a lap but was one of 22 drivers running on the lead lap with race winner Larson at the checkered flag. Sunday’s race included 17 lead changes among eight drivers. There were seven cautions for 29 laps.
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– story by John Singler
www.mrn.com
Concord, North Carolina
