Kyle Larson, driving his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Chevy, brought home the prize in the Xfinity Series Boyd Gaming 300 Saturday afternoon at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He dominated the field and would lead the most laps, 142-of-200, before finally capturing the checkered flag.
This is his first win at the track after his runner-up finish last year. It’s also his ninth career victory at eight different tracks.
After the race, Larson commented, “It was an awesome day for DC Solar. I think this is their first win so I’m glad to get them their first win here in the Xfinity series.” Larson would go on to say, “This race car is so fast, it was really fast last year, but you never really know. This is my first time with this body and it performed well. I’m happy about that, it’s a great day.”
Stage 1 would only have one caution caused by a spinning Dylan Lupton. The rest of the stage we saw a great battle from the drivers, especially between Larson and Christopher Bell. Bell and Larson would swap the lead so often they were putting on a great race for the fans. However, it would be Bell who would become the winner of Stage 1.
Stage 2 would go caution free but there was still plenty of action. After a bad pit stop, Bell would fall back a little giving Ryan Blaney the chance to vie for the lead with Larson. Another great battle would ensue between the two but this time Larson would take the Stage 2 win.
The final stage of the race saw Bell back up front once again battling with Larson for the lead. It started to look like it was going to be a fuel mileage race. This had teams scrambling to see if they could make it to the finish without pitting and it seemed that Larson was going to be a little short. You could almost hear the sigh of relief when a caution with 16 laps to go came out. Once the race got back underway Larson would get the lead and not look back until he took the checkers.
Bell would bring his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota home in second place. He battled with Larson hard but it just wasn’t enough today.
Bell who had given Larson a shove to the lead told reporters, “It would have been nice to get up to the lead but I knew if I could put Kyle out there we’d be able to race it out. It was a lot of fun racing and I hope it was a lot of fun watching.”
Justin Allgaier finished his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet in third place. He will be celebrating his 12-year Anniversary with wife Ashley, tomorrow.
Allgaier commented, “At the end of the race we got ourselves good track position, led laps, and there I probably burnt up the right front a little bit too much on that long run and started fading. I was glad to see that caution at the end, but you’re never really sure how those are gonna go.”
Ryan Blaney and Elliott Sadler would round out the top five. Daniel Hemric, Brandon Jones, Tyler Reddick, Cole Custer, and Spencer Gallagher finished sixth through 10th, respectively.
Reddick leads the Xfinity Series standings with 123 points, by virtue of a win, over Sadler, who also has 123 points. Bell is in third, 23 points behind, with Allgaier in fourth and Gallagher rounding out the top five.
The Xfinity Series heads next to ISM Raceway (formerly Phoenix International Raceway) on March 10.
