Kyle Larson dominated in an emotional victory at Bristol Motor Speedway, leading 411 of 500 laps for his second NASCAR Cup Series win this season.
The win came three days after the death of Jon Edwards, the Hendrick Motorsports director of communications who also was the PR representative for Larson when he joined Hendrick in 2021 en route to the Cup championship. Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet was among many cars sporting decals with Edwards’ likeness Sunday at Bristol.
“This one’s definitely for Jon,” Larson told FS1’s Jamie Little while tapping the decal with a smile. “He’s just a great guy here. We’re going to miss him. Wish he was going to be here with us to celebrate, but I know he’s celebrating with us in spirit.
“Just a flawless race at Bristol for the 5 team. Really good car. That was a lot of fun. … A little bit out of breath. Just so high-paced here. Heart rate’s up. Really cool.”
With his 31st career victory, Larson won his second consecutive Cup race at Bristol, where he led 462 laps last September. He has led 872 of the past 1,000 laps in Cup on the 0.533-mile oval.
Denny Hamlin finished second by 2.250 seconds, falling a spot short in his bid to join Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell as the second driver with a three-race winning streak this season.
“Glad to stop his three-peat,” Larson said with a laugh about Hamlin. “We hate to see him win, as I’m sure you guys do, too. It’s great to be back in victory lane.”
The Hendrick Motorsports star dedicated the victory to his late PR rep.
Hamlin, who credited Larson for his victory last week at Darlington after a late crash by the No. 5 brought out a critical yellow, took the loss in stride.
“You’ve got to give that team and Kyle his due for just a dominant performance,” Hamlin said. “Pretty flawless day for him. That was all I had to try to keep up there. Glad I was able to give him a little bit of a run.”
“This weekend we’re all thinking about Jon Edwards’ family, Al Pearce, Shigeaki Hattori. We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over this past week. Our thoughts are with them. I wish we could have got one more spot, but I was just trying to keep him honest.”
Crew chief Cliff Daniels says the past two races have proved valuable to the team in different ways.
Pearce, a longtime NASCAR journalist, and Hattori, a championship truck owner, died during the week before Edwards’ death was announced Thursday by Hendrick Motorsports.
Before working with Larson, Edwards had been the primary PR representative for Jeff Gordon during his four Cup Series championships. Edwards became the right-hand man for Gordon, now the vice chairman at Hendrick Motorsports.
“It’s been a rough week, I’ll be honest,” Gordon told FS1. “I lost somebody who was like a brother to me and so many other people that he impacted. I just want to say thank you to everybody that has been sending messages, making phone calls. Obviously, the tributes here on the car.
“Kyle was obviously very close to Jon, and Jon did a lot for him. You could tell he was driving with a passion out there. What a just dominant performance, and this one was for Jon. He would not want the limelight or any of this attention, but I know how proud he’d be of this performance and this team.”
Ty Gibbs finished third, followed by Chase Briscoe and Ryan Blaney, who led 48 laps in the No. 12 Ford before his team’s long-pitting strategy backfired as the race stayed caution-free for the final 235 laps.
“Yeah, it was worth it,” Blaney said. “I thought it was a good move just in case someone blew a tire or something, but for a while we had everybody lapped, and that was the long-shot play to try and win the race. I was fifth before that cycle started, so it was nice that we got back up there for how long we ran.
The 2021 Cup Series champion led 411 of 500 laps.
“I didn’t have a ton of laps to make it back up, but, overall, it was a good call by (crew chief) Jonathan (Hassler). It was the chance to catch a break, and it didn’t really come, but it was a good weekend. Running long right there was really our only play to win.”
Pole-sitter Alex Bowman led the first 39 laps before being passed by Larson, who was in first for the next 350 laps while winning both stages (for a series-leading seven career stage victories at Bristol).
Bowman suffered an engine failure and finished 37th.
Stage 1 winner: Larson
Stage 2 winner: Larson
Next: Sunday, April 27, 3 p.m. ET at Talladega Superspeedway on Fox
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