Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano made his Team Penske’s fuel strategy call work to perfection Sunday afternoon to claim victory in the South Point 400 Playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and earn the first of four NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 berths.

Logano led only the final six laps on the Vegas 1.5-miler but was able to hold off the afternoon’s most dominant car, Christopher Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota by a slight .662-second in the final few laps.

Bell, on the other hand, led a race-best 155 of the race’s 267 laps and won Stage 2, but he pit 35 laps later than Logano and was not able to make up the nearly 30-second advantage Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford held on track after Bell’s stop.

Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez, who also used the same strategy as Logano, finished third after leading 57 laps, followed by Playoff driver, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron and Hendrick’s Alex Bowman.

It’s been quite the turn of fortune for Logano, who a week ago following a race at the Charlotte ROVAL thought he was eliminated from the Playoffs only to receive news from NASCAR hours after the checkered flag that he was reinstated. Bowman had initially held that Playoff position, but his car was ruled illegal in post-race inspection and he was disqualified after the ROVAL race.

That meant Logano, not Bowman would advance to this Round of 8 which includes two more races – next week at Homestead-Miami Speedway and then Nov. 3 at Martinsville, Va. – to set the four-driver Championship field. Of note, Logano’s last Las Vegas Playoff race win in 2022 propelled him to the series championship.

“Man, we did some fuel mileage stuff, didn’t we? Holy crap,’’ said a smiling Logano, whose four career wins now at Las Vegas ties NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson for most all-time at the track.

“What an incredible turn of events here the last week. Very fast Pennzoil Mustang. We’re going to the Championship 4 again. It’s real. Great fuel mileage, great calls by [crew chief] Paul [Wolfe], Nick Hensley, our gas man, making sure she’s full, giving me the info to keep the lead that we needed to. We’re going racing again. What an incredible situation, man. I’m so blessed.

“Just incredible day. Like I said, it takes the whole team to do the fuel mileage stuff. Not just the engineers, spotter. It takes all of us to do it. Total team win. We may not have been the fastest car today, but we were a solid top-five car and be able to maximize it at the end.’’

Bell was as disappointed as Logano was elated.

“I don’t know [how to come to terms with the race ending] and I don’t think I have come to terms yet’’ said Bell, who is now 0-for-13 in wins after starting a race from pole position.

“Just a bummer. I think everyone on this team did everything perfect today. This thing was obviously on rails, pit crew did an amazing job and [pit crew] Adam [Stevens] called a great race. Did everything we needed to, but unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be today.’’

“The points look pretty good, but you’re never safe in this deal,’’ Bell added. “We needed to win today and unfortunately, we didn’t. We’ll go on to the next one.’’

The race certainly provided major implications for the eight Playoff drivers – three of them were eliminated from winning contention by Stage 2, two more struggled with pit stops thereafter, leaving Logano, Bell, Byron and eighth place finisher Denny Hamlin to lead the championship presence among the top-10. Bell’s afternoon was good enough to propel him into the championship points lead with a 42-point advantage on the cutoff line.

Hamlin’s eighth-place effort was impressive after a difficult day for his No. 11 Toyota team, which endured a challenging day on pit road before also using a similar fuel-save plan to Logano.

His teammate JGR’s Martin Truex Jr. was sixth, followed by Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain, Hamlin, Legacy Motor Club’s John Hunter Nemechek and Roush-Fenway-Keselowski’s Chris Buescher.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson finished 11th – falling off the lead lap at one point after also having a bad pit stop. He is now second in the points standings, 35 points above the cutoff line and his Hendrick teammate Byron holds that important fourth place, 27 points ahead of Hamlin.

Regular season champion and the race’s outside polesitter Tyler Reddick finished 35th, eliminated after a roll-over accident in tight racing on lap 90. The accident collected fellow Playoff driver, Chase Elliott along with Brad Keselowski and reigning series champion and Playoff driver Ryan Blaney.

“We can still have a good day at Homestead and be in the mix in Martinsville,’’ a frustrated Reddick said. “Ideally, yeah, it would have been nice to win today. It would be nice to win next week, and that is what we will focus on, but thankfully we got 10 stage points in stage one, and it’s not like we are absolutely out of it on points, yet. We are going to have to be perfect here on out, probably.”

It was a rough weekend from even before the race’s green flag for Blaney, who suffered a flat tire in Saturday’s opening practice that put his primary No. 12 Team Penske Ford into the wall. He started his back-up from last in the 37-car field Sunday and was steadily moving forward before being caught up in that multi-car accident with Reddick and Elliott. He finished 32nd. Elliott was 33rd.

Hamlin is fifth in the championship standings, 27 off Byron. Reddick is 30 points below the cutoff line, followed by Blaney (-47) and Elliott (-53).

The NASCAR Cup Series moves to South Florida for Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bell is the defending race winner.

Based on the box score alone, you might think Kyle Larson dominated Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

You’d be wrong.

Yes, Larson led 181 of 267 laps at the 1.5-mile track. Kyle Busch led the second-most—18. And, yes, Larson swept the first two stages and took the checkered flag to secure his third victory at Las Vegas, tying Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski for most among full-time active Cup drivers.

The truth is that Larson had to use all his consummate skills behind the wheel to hold off Tyler Reddick after a restart with 27 laps left. Larson had the short-run speed, enough to build significant advantages early in a run.

But Reddick soon would begin closing the gap, so much so that with two laps left, Reddick was a scant 0.143 seconds behind Larson at the stripe, roughly one car-length.

Larson, however, was adept at putting his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in a position to block the progress of Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Toyota, and when the race ended two laps later, Larson had increased the margin to 0.441 seconds.

“I knew Tyler was going to be the guy to beat from the first stage,”said Larson, who won for the first time this season and the 24^thtime in his career. “He was really fast there. I was hoping those guys were going to get racing a little bit longer behind me, because I felt like it was going to time out where he was running really hard and getting the tow to catch me at the end.

“Thankfully, (I) was able to air block him a couple laps and get him tight. I thought him and (23XI teammate) Bubba (Wallace) were going to get working together again to build a run, so I was happy that didn’t happen.

“But all in all, such a great job by this Hendrick Cars Chevy team and just their execution, pit road, restarts—all that was great. Cool to get a win here at Vegas again. Back-to-back, swept all the stages again. Can’t ask for much more.”

The closing laps brought a familiar pattern that had developed during the race. In both the first and second stages, Reddick was closing fast on Larson but couldn’t get close enough before the stages ended. The end of the race was déjà vu.

“Yeah, Kyle did a really good job there of pretty much taking away every option I had to close the gap,” said Reddick, whose cause was hurt by pit road issues, including a slide through his stall. “Yeah, he seemed pretty good in the middle, and I was obviously really good on the bottom. He just never let me have it.

“I kept trying to run higher and higher, and he was kind of running right in the middle of the race track there, was kind of pretty efficient to block both lanes. Every time I kind of got close, we’re running just wide open enough in Turn 1 and 2 that he could kind of defend pretty well. It’s frustrating. I feel like we were never up front really all day long until it got to the stage end.”

The victory was Larson’s second straight in Sin City and the 10^that LVMS for team owner Rick Hendrick, whose cars have won four straight spring races at the intermediate track. It was the third straight win for Chevrolet to start the season.

Reigning series champion Ryan Blaney finished third, followed by Ross Chastain, who started from the rear of the field because of an unapproved adjustment to his No. 1 Trackhouse Chevrolet (replacing a dislodged portion of the wrap on his car). Chastain also overcame a pit road speeding penalty incurred during a green-flag stop on Lap 121.

Ty Gibbs rallied from an uncontrolled tire violation to finish fifth, followed by Noah Gragson, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, pole winner Joey Logano and DAYTONA 500 winner Willam Byron, who fought back from a lap he lost in removing a large trash bag that had attached to the nose of his car on the windswept track.

Larson took over the series lead from Busch, who finished 26^thafter drawing a penalty for pitting outside his box midway through the final stage. Blaney is second in the standings, eight points behind Larson. Busch dropped to sixth, 23 points back.

Kyle Larson earned this trophy the old-fashioned way. The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet led the most laps and swept both stage wins but still had to hold off a hard-charging, equally motivated Christopher Bell at the finish line to claim a dramatic victory in Sunday’s South Point 400 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The 31-year-old Larson blocked the final charge by fellow Playoff driver Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota as the two cars approached the checkered flag. Larson ultimately positioned his Chevy in front to claim a .082-second win and most importantly, secure the first of four available positions in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 race at Phoenix in three weeks.

It was a compelling afternoon ushering in this final three-race, eight-driver round of Playoff competition to set up the four-driver title chase. There were seven race leaders and 20 lead changes. Larson held off the field on a re-start with 45 laps to go and never relinquished it despite quality challenges from Bell to close out the race and earlier, Roush Fenway Keselowski owner-driver Brad Keselowski, who led 38 laps himself.

Larson led seven times and accumulated the most laps led – 133 of 267 – on the afternoon to top the 1,000-laps led mark on the season – his 1,031 total laps out front in 2023, most in the series.

Not only did he have to hold off Bell, who made up half a second in the closing five laps to get to Larson’s bumper, the 2021 series champ Larson survived a close call mid-race, his Chevy getting loose and out of control. But the former dirt race champion dramatically corrected and calmly carried on.

“Thankfully Christopher [Bell] always races extremely clean, it could have gotten crazier than it did coming to the start-finish line so “thank you” to him for racing with respect there,’’ Larson said. “What a job done by my team. Just a great race car.

“I almost gave it away there in Turn one and two. Got sideways and hit the wall and had to fight back from there. I was happy to pull away as much as we did and was hoping that would be enough to maintain, which it was. But I didn’t think they’d be able to get as close as they did at the end, so nerve-wracking.

“This is really cool to get to race for the championship in a few weeks and really glad I don’t have to stress these next two races,’’ Larson continued.

Despite the impressive afternoon Bell, who started from pole position and led 61 laps now finds himself ranked fifth – three points below the four-driver cutoff line heading into next week’s Playoff race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“I don’t know what else I could have done,’’ Bell said. “I feel like that was my moment, that was my moment to make the Final Four and didn’t quite capture it. Coming to the checkers there, I knew he was going to be blocking so I’m like I’ll try to go high, and he went high. I don’t even know if I had a run to get by him coming to the line. Just wasn’t enough, but a great day. Great day for sure to get those stage points and a second place finish out of it. Puts us behind by two [points] so we’re not out of it by any means, but would have been nice to lock in.’’

Seven of the eight remaining Playoff-eligible drivers finished among the Top 10. Playoff driver Ryan Blaney finished 36th. His No. 12 Ford was disqualified following post-race technical inspection when the left front damper didn’t meet the specified length. He now sits 56 points below the cutoff line for the Championship 4 and essentially must win one of the next two races – at Homestead-Miami Speedway or Martinsville Speedway – to advance.

The non-Playoff cars of Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch, RFK’s Keselowski and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain rounded out the top five behind Larson and Bell.

Playoff drivers William Byron, Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and Chris Buescher finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

The race shook up the Playoff points. Beyond Larson’s automatic bid, Byron still holds the championship lead in what is now more tightly-bunched standings. Byron is 11 points above the cutoff line, and is followed for the final championship spots by Hamlin (+4) and Truex (+3).

Bell sits three points below Truex on the cutoff line, followed by Reddick (-15), Buescher (-23) and Blaney (-56).

Hendrick Motorsports executive – and NASCAR Hall of Famer driver Jeff Gordon – smiled when asked about Larson’s day.

“I don’t know where to begin,’’ Gordon said. “It certainly looked like they were the class or the field at one point, then Bell did then Keselowski did. Great race really.”

Asked if Larson was potentially as “good” as the 93-race winner Gordon had been when competing, the former four-time series champion said, “You take a guy like Kyle and his capabilities and his talent and he’s impressed me with his work ethic too. I wasn’t sure how he approached the Cup Series and [crew chief] Cliff [Daniels] and all the data that Cliff gives him in the meetings they have. .. it’s a lot of information you have to absorb.

“But he’s stepped up to the plate and done absolutely everything the organization has asked of him and then some. It’s been a great relationship and this year has been all about getting the car and team to align.

“Seems like in the Playoffs they’ve been bringing fast race cars and stepping up to the plate.”

William Byron won the most important race of Sunday afternoon—by inches off pit road.

Quick work by Byron's pit crew enabled the driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to beat teammate Kyle Larson off pit road for an overtime restart in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and that was the decisive factor in Byron's fifth career NASCAR Cup Series victory.

When Aric Almirola spun into the Turn 4 wall with four laps left of a scheduled 267, the race turned upside down. Larson held a two-second lead at that point and appeared the almost certain winner.

After NASCAR called the fourth and final caution, Martin Truex Jr. stayed on the track, with Byron, Larson and most of the other contenders pitting for two tires. Byron's crew was a fraction of a second faster on the stop, and Byron claimed a front-row starting spot for the overtime to Truex's outside.

On the first overtime lap, Byron surged past Truex as the cars entered Turn 3 at the 1.5-mile track and pulled away to win by.622 seconds over Larson and by .766 seconds over teammate Alex Bowman. It was the third time Hendrick Motorsports had finished 1-2-3 in a Cup Series event.

The drivers accomplished the feat with their fourth driver, Chase Elliott, watching from North Carolina with team owner Rick Hendrick. Elliott broke his left tibia in a snowboarding accident in Colorado on Friday and will miss multiple races as he recovers from surgery.

Josh Berry, substituting for Elliott, finished 29^th, two laps down, in his first race in NASCAR's Next Gen car.

"Yeah, just been really confident about the group of guys that I have on this 24 team," said Byron, who led 176 of 271 laps, swept the first two stages and won for the first time at Las Vegas. "They work extremely hard, and we spent a lot of time in the offseason just going through running at the sim (simulator) with Chevy and running on iRacing and just trying to get better as a race car driver and as a team.

"Thinking of Chase back home. Wish he was out here with us. He's a great race car driver, great teammate. Wish he was out here."

For the overtime restart, Larson chose the inside lane behind Truex and was bottled up behind the No. 19 Toyota. But Larson acknowledged the race was lost on pit road.

"Damn," Larson said with a wry laugh. "It's just part of Cup racing. It seems like kind of laps down, lap by lap, and then, sure enough, the yellow lights come on. You've just got to get over that and then try to execute a good pit stop, and I thought I did a really good job getting to my sign, and getting to the commitment line.

"I had a gap to William behind me, and their pit crew must have just done a really good job and got out in front of us, and that gave up the front row. I knew I was in trouble with the 19 staying out. I felt like William was going to get by him.

"Yeah, just a bummer that we didn't end up the winner, but all in all, William probably had a little bit better car than I had today, and their pit crew executed when they needed to there at the end."

In the overtime scramble, Bubba Wallace finished fourth and Christopher Bell fifth, both in Toyotas. Austin Cindric, who had been lapped at one point, recovered to run sixth as the top-finishing Ford driver. Truex, Justin Haley, Kevin Harvick and Daniel Suarez completed the top 10.

In a race that featured 13 lead changes among eight drivers, Larson took the top spot in Lap 196, after restarting third behind Denny Hamlin and Bowman on lap 190. The 2021 series champion extended his advantage to nearly five seconds over Byron during an exchange of green-flag pit stops before Almirola's accident caused the fourth caution on Lap 263.

Byron had cut Larson's lead to two seconds before the accident forced overtime.

The first caution for an on-track incident didn't occur until Lap 183, nine laps after the final stage went green. Pole winner Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch were running three-wide through Turn 4 when disaster struck.

With Keselowski's No. 6 Ford in the middle, Logano ran out of room to the outside, and after contact with Keselowski's car, Logano's No. 22 Ford bounced off the wall and spun into the infield grass.

Logano brought his car to pit road, but his crew couldn't repair the Ford before the seven-minute time limit ran out under NASCAR's damaged vehicle policy.

Asked whether Keselowski pinched him into the corner, Logano replied, "Yeah, he did. I'm sure he didn't mean to do it. It is what it is. What are you going to do, right? We got fenced."

Team Penske's Joey Logano became the first driver to secure a position in the Championship 4 with a shot at the NASCAR Cup Series 2022 Championship thanks to a valiant surge to victory in the final laps of Sunday's South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Logano, on fresh Goodyear tires, rallied back through the field following a late race pit stop, passing Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain for the lead with three laps remaining and driving off to his third win at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas high banks - a slight .817-second ahead of fellow Playoff driver Chastain, who led a race best 68 of the 267 laps on the afternoon.

"Let's go get a championship, baby," the 2018 series champion Logano screamed into his team radio after taking the checkered flag in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford.

That pit stop for Logano with 26 laps remaining, dropped him from a top-10 position on track, but the fresh tires were the difference in making up ground on the leaders who did not pit.

And Logano went forward quickly.

"What a great car, the Penske cars were all fast today,” said the 32-year old Logano, who now has three wins in 2022 and 30 in his 15-year career in NASCAR's top series.

"Oh man, all you want to do is get to the Championship 4 before the season starts and race for the championship and we've got the team to do it. I don't see why we can't win it at this point. Things are looking really good for us.

"A lot of adversity we fought though in the last 50 laps of so. I thought we were going to win then kinda fell out, got some tires and racing Ross was fun. He did a good job air-blocking me and I was just trying to be patient but eventually I was like, 'I've got to go here.'"

It was a wild action-packed day at the Las Vegas oval with the eight Playoff drivers experiencing both sides of emotion. Five of them were among the 11 race leaders at various points on the afternoon. And four finished in the top five.

Joe Gibbs Racing driver and Las Vegas native Kyle Busch, who had some pit road issues, finished third, followed by a pair of Playoff drivers: Stewart-Haas Racing's Chase Briscoe and Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin, who rounded out the top five. It was an especially impressive performance for Hamlin, who started 31st.

Hendrick Motorsports Playoff teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott had frustrating and disappointing days, finishing 13th and 21st, respectively. Logano's Penske teammate Ryan Blaney - who won Stage 2 and led 39 laps - finished 28th after hitting the wall late in the race. Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell was 34th after being innocently collected in an early-race accident.

"When you perform that poorly you get poor results, that's how it works," the regular season champion Elliott said of his day.

Elliott went into this three-race round leading the standings and after Vegas has dropped to third in the championship, 17 points above the cutoff line. Logano earned the automatic advancement Sunday and Chastain is now in second place, 18 points up.

Hamlin's top five was good enough to move him into that important fourth place in the championship – six points up on Byron. The 4"Bs” are now all in the bottom half of the Playoff points. Briscoe is nine points behind Hamlin, Blaney 11 back and Bell is 23 points off the pace.

One of the most talked about incidents in the race involved a pair of non-championship-eligible drivers. Shortly after the re-start following Stage 1, Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson and 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace – who won Stage 1 - were racing alongside one another toward the front of the field. On lap 94, Larson's No. 5 Chevy got loose and moved up the track, forcing Wallace's car into the outside wall.

Wallace's No. 45 Toyota bounced down off the wall and then he drove into Larson's car, spinning both - with Playoff driver Bell getting tagged by Larson's spinning Chevy in the aftermath. After Wallace and Larson's cars came to rest in the infield, Wallace took his helmet off and marched toward Larson, who was just getting out of his car.

The two exchanged words and Wallace pushed Larson multiple times before walking away.

"You get shoved into the fence deliberately like he [Larson] did trying to force me to lift, the steering was gone," Wallace said, when asked if he intentionally spun Larson."He just happened to be there.

"Hate it for our team. Super fast car. Larson wanted to make a three-wide dive bomb but never cleared me and I don't lift. I know I'm kinda new running at the front, but I don't lift, was never in a spot to lift and he never lifted either. Now we're junk. Just piss poor move on his execution.

"He knows what he did was wrong. He never cleared me and just hate it for my team."

For his part, Larson said he realized he got into Wallace and wasn't entirely surprised by Wallace's aggression afterward. However, Larson said, he didn't hit Wallace intentionally.

"I knew he was going to retaliate," Larson said."He had reason to be mad but his race wasn't over until he retaliated. It is what it is. Just aggression turned into frustration and he retaliated.”

"I know he's probably still upset but I'm sure with everything going on he'll know he made a mistake in the retaliation part and I'm sure he'll think twice about it next time," Larson added.

"I saw him walking over [toward me] so I figured he'd do something. He had every right to be upset and I'd rather him do that [push me] than tear up our cars in a dangerous manner."

While the incident ended Wallace and Larson's days, it also ruined the afternoon for Bell, who won an elimination race just last week to advance to the Round of 8. His Joe Gibbs Racing team was unable to repair his No. 20 Toyota and he pulled off track, finishing 34th in the 36-car field – worst among the eight Playoff drivers.

Playoff action resumes next weekend with Sunday's Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). William Byron won the 2021 Homestead race, which was held in February last year.

Alex Bowman won in a dramatic overtime ending in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday - gambling on a two-tire final pit stop for his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and holding off the field in a two-lap sprint to decide the NASCAR Cup Series race.

Bowman and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson made up the front row on the restart - the pair along with teammate William Byron took two tires on the final pit stop while Kyle Busch, who had led 40 of the previous 45 laps opted to get four tires and start just behind on the second row.

The two-tire stop, however, proved to be enough with Busch unable to even make a pass attempt as the Hendrick cars decided the trophy. The Tucson-native Bowman, 28, crossed the line .178-seconds ahead of the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Larson to earn his first trophy of 2022 and seventh of his career. It was Bowman's first Top-20 finish after a frustrating start to the three-race old season.

"This thing was so fast all day,'' said Bowman, who led 16 of the 274 laps. "Just never really had the track position to show it. But man, what a call by [crew chief] Greg Ives and the guys to take two [tires] there and obviously it paid off.

"Racing Kyle [Larson] is always fun and I've got to race him for a couple wins and we always race each other super clean and super respectively. Just can't say enough about these guys.

"It's been a pretty awful start to the year so to come out here and get a win on a last re-start, I feel like that's pretty special.''

The runner-up finish for Larson, who led three times for 37 laps on the day, was good enough to propel him into the championship lead for the first time this season. He holds a six-point advantage over Joe Gibbs Racing's Martin Truex Jr., who finished eighth on Sunday.

Trackhouse Racing's Ross Chastain, who led a race-best 83 laps and scored the two-year-old team's first Stage victory, finished third. The Las Vegas native Busch was fourth and a third Hendrick Motorsports teammate, William Byron rounded out the Top Five.

Stewart-Haas Racing's Aric Almirola earned his third consecutive Top-10 with a sixth place finish. Tyler Reddick, Truex, Hendrick's Chase Elliott and polesitter, Christopher Bell completed the Top 10.

For most of the race's final laps, it looked like Busch would claim his first NASCAR Cup Series trophy at his "home track" since 2009. It's been 46 series wins since that triumph.

And Busch's work in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on Sunday was especially impressive considering he crashed in opening practice on Saturday and was forced to use a back-up car originally sent to the track for spare parts. The car wasn't prepared in time for qualifying so Busch started last in the race.

His rally for a near-win was enthusiastically appreciated by the home crowd even if the ultimate Top Five was still a bit disappointing for the former two-time series champion considering his time out front (49 laps) in the closing laps.

"Everybody really had a hand in making us go today, really appreciate that,'' Busch said, acknowledging crew members from all four JGR cars frantically worked to get his car race ready.

"It was good, fast at the end and tried to do what I could there to hold the lead with Truex. Felt like I inched away finally, and we were coming to the white [flag] but it wasn't meant to be. Not our day. See you next week.''

The race featuring the 1.5-mile debut of the NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen cars produced 23 lead changes among 15 different drivers with Bowman (Stage 1) and Chastain (Stage 2) winning the stages.

"We were like 30th in first practice, right off the truck and we slowly built up to it and if we can keep doing that and have cars like this, obviously we can compete,'' Chastain said.

As he crossed the Las Vegas Motor Speedway finish line to claim the South Point 400 trophy, Denny Hamlin screamed into his team radio, "Viva Las Vegas." And indeed, it was that kind of night for the perennial championship contender, who led a race best 137 of the 267 laps to earn his first Las Vegas victory in 20 starts and take an automatic bid into the next round of the Playoffs.

The 40-year old Virginian edged reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott by .442-seconds. Elliott cut into Hamlin's lead on every one of the closing 10 laps, taking full advantage of traffic, but was ultimately unable to catch Hamlin's No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Hamlin's JGR teammates Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. finished third and fourth with Penske Racing's Ryan Blaney rounding out the Top-5 – all Playoff drivers.

Tyler Reddick, who just missed advancing to this three-race Playoff round by a mere two-points last week, finished sixth after running among the Top-3 for much of the late race laps.

Penske Racing's Brad Keselowski, Chip Ganassi Racing's Kurt Busch, Stewart-Haas Racing's Kevin Harvick and regular season champion, Kyle Larson rounded out the Top-10. Keselowski, Harvick and Larson are also championship eligible.

Hamlin led seven different times, won Stage 2 and took the lead for good with 39 laps remaining – facing that challenge from Elliott in the waning laps of a what was a relatively clean race – only one yellow flag outside of the competition caution and two stage breaks.vThe only other caution for an on-track incident came out for a single car accident involving driver Joey Gase, who whose No. 15 Chevrolet lost a tire and made heavy impact with the wall. He was examined in the Infield Care Center but transported to an area hospital for a precautionary exam.

"It feels so good to win in Vegas, last couple times I've been so close but just didn't have the right breaks, but they got the car great and great to hold those guys off," said Hamlin, who earned his 46th career victory and becomes the first driver to officially earn a shot into the Playoff Round of 8.

"I'm so happy to not have to worry about the next two weeks, but I am a professional and I will work just as hard each and every week to win."

Obviously disappointed not to win, Elliott was still enthusiastic about his runner-up finish – his 12th top five of the season – rallying from a pit stop strategy that put him a lap down at one point.

"We were really close, just not quite close enough," Elliott said. "Denny did a really good job controlling the gap to me and he was having a hard time [lapping] with the 21 (Matt DiBenedetto).

"Super close. Really proud of our NAPA team and I feel like we've been performing at a really nice level the last three or four weeks, just haven't had great results to show for it.

"Proud of the effort tonight and looking forward to the next two [races]. It's going to be wild."

Elliott's Hendrick Motorsports teammate Larson certainly looked like the driver to beat early on. He led 95 laps and won his series best 15th Stage win in the opening portion of the night, but a different pit strategy put him a lap down mid-race and he never fully recovered to challenge for the lead again.

While Hamlin earned the automatic bid into the next round of the Playoffs, Larson still leads the championship standings – 22 points over Kyle Busch.

With his seventh-place finish Keselowski moved into the eighth position in the standings, with races at Talladega, Ala. and the Charlotte ROVAL remaining to determine which eight drivers move on in the championship battle.

Hendrick Motorsports William Byron, who suffered a tire problem late in the race, finished 18th and is now four points below the cutoff line. Even with his Top-10, Harvick remains ninth in the standings – still looking for his first victory of the season.

Hendrick driver Alex Bowman finished 22nd and is 13 points behind Keselowski and Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell finished 25th, two laps down Sunday night fighting through several setbacks. He is 25 points out of that transfer position.

The second race in this Playoff NASCAR Cup Series round is the YellaWood 500 next Sunday at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Keselowski won at Talladega this April. Hamlin is the defending Playoff race winner there.

Kyle Larson left little to chance Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway leading a race best 103 laps and pulling away to a convincing 3.156-second win over former NASCAR Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski to win the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube - his first victory in two years.

Larson, 28, of Elk Grove, Calif. became the quickest winner in Hendrick Motorsports long and esteemed history, taking the checkered flag in only his fourth start in the team's famous No. 5 Chevrolet.

It was a hard-earned and highly-emotional win for Larson, who missed most of last season serving a suspension for using racially-insensitive language. The popular young Californian was reinstated by NASCAR in the offseason after following a course of rehabilitation and sensitivity training. He came into the season with the Hendrick Motorsports opportunity, grateful and ready to redeem himself.

Larson was exuberant speaking to the team on the radio while driving under the checkered flag as the race winner. He did celebratory burnouts on the backstretch and then again under the flag-stand on the frontstretch telling his Hendrick Motorsports team on the car radio, "What a car, what an opportunity. Thank you, guys."

Just as Larson was finishing his live television interview, Keselowski ran across the infield grass to shake Larson's hand and congratulate him on a powerful race performance.

"I'm just really happy for him, I know he's been through a lot in the last year and he's a good kid who I've known for a little while and has a good family and I'm just happy to see him bounce back," the Team Penske driver Brad Keselowski said.

"He was really fast - had a lot of speed in all the lanes which was really impressive, usually you have to make a compromise, but they were really good. If Kyle Larson wasn't here, we would have had a dominant day," Keselowski added with a smile.

It was a highly competitive race from green to checkered flag with 27 lead changes among 12 different drivers. Five drivers led at least 20 laps. Keselowski won Stage 1 and Larson won Stage 2 - the first stage victories for both drivers this season.

In all, Larson led a race best six times, working his Chevrolet back to the front no matter the challenge, ultimately pacing the field for the last 30 laps en route to his seventh career win. It is his first on a 1.5-mile track after nine previous runner-up finishes on mile-and-a-half venues.

"It was such an awesome car," Larson said. "Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) and everybody did a great job preparing this piece. It was so much fun to drive. I could go wherever I wanted to. I know we had a really good car once we would kind of get single-filed out; but just drafting early in the run was tough.

"But thank you so much Mr. Hendrick, Jeff Gordon and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports for the amazing opportunity I've been gifted. Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet everybody at the engine shop. Thank you so much for all the hard work. This is definitely special."

Larson and Keselowski managed to use the final portion of the race to get around the full-on Joe Gibbs Racing team, whose drivers combined to lead 53 laps on the afternoon. Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch - a Las Vegas native - and Denny Hamlin finished third and fourth. Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney was fifth, his first top 10 of the season.

Two more Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas, driven by Martin Truex Jr. and Christopher Bell were sixth and seventh, followed by last week's winner, Hendrick Motorsport's William Byron. Team Penske driver Joey Logano and Richard Petty Motorsport's driver Erik Jones rounded out the top 10.

Larson's teammate Chase Elliott - the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion - finished 13th after overcoming several problems. His team had a jack issue in the pits and contact with another car made for multiple long pit stops.

"We were good on the short run, just didn't quite have enough long run speed," said Denny Hamlin, who led 47 laps on the day. "Certainly I thought it was a good start, we'll just gather our data and try to figure out what we need to do to be better when we come back here and it really counts."

Hamlin and Keselowski, who are still looking for their first wins of the 2021 season sit atop the championship points standings. Hamlin leads by 38 points over Keselowski and Larson is third.