Breaking It Down: Noco 400 at Martinsville
The Noco 400 at Martinsville Speedway saw Kyle Larson take the victory along with an entire burnout lap celebration around the track for the fans!
Overall the race saw strategy and track position being the recipe for success that afternoon. Larson would end up taking his second victory of the year and his first ever at Martinsville, a track that has surprisingly confounded him, particularly due to his knack of racing on short tracks -- both on asphalt and dirt.
Let's take a look at some of the major talking points as we Break Down the Noco 400!
Larson From Out of Nowhere!
Larson picked up his first win at Martinsville after saying that he never thought he would win at the paper-clip-sized half-mile bullring.
Martinsville has not been Larson's cup of tea in his NASCAR career but a caution brought out by JJ Yeley with 57 laps to go gave Larson his opportunity to pounce.
With that caution, Larson decided to pit for just two tires, giving him track position. Fellow competitor Daniel Suarez tried the same thing but it did not work out as well as Larson.
With the track position and new tires, Larson was able to pick apart the field, passing Joey Logano and Martinsville expert Denny Hamlin for the lead, holding on for the 29 remaining laps to pick up his first grandfather clock at the oldest track on the NASCAR circuit.
And now that he's won for the first time there, don't be surprised if Larson goes on a run where he wins another two, three or maybe even more races in the remainder of his Cup career.
The reason Larson "came out of nowhere" for the win has nothing to do with anyone denying his chances of winning, but rather the fact that in the first two stages, he was nowhere to be seen. Larson's average running position for much of the race was around 7th place.
That's not bad , but the third stage padded that average. Larson struggled to move up the pack in the first two stages. He only had 51 green flag passes the entire race. Compare that to someone like Austin Dillon, who led with 89 passes.
Larson certainly was in contention, given he ran 98% of his laps in the top 15, but without the right strategy call, he wouldn't have won the race. In the end, Larson led 30 laps -- the final 30. Many wouldn't have picked him to win there, given the first 370 laps but Larson dominated the final 30 laps to get his second win of the season and continue to push for another championship.
Stewart-Haas Dominance
Although a Stewart-Haas driver didn't win the race, you could argue that this race was the best we've seen from the organization in a while. For most of the first and second stages, all four SHR drivers were in the top 6. Almost the entire race was led by an SHR driver.
Ryan Preece led the first 135 laps of the race. Chase Briscoe also had a great day and led 109 laps. Kevin Harvick also managed to lead 20 laps. Overall SHR led 65% of all laps. Although Aric Almirola didn't lead any laps, he had the highest running position of the entire field with an average position of fourth place.
Almirola also had 99% of his laps in the top 15.
So what happened to SHR at the end of the race?
Well, a badly timed caution and a mistake on pit road took Harvick out of contention. A loose lug nut forced Harvick to the back of the field, giving him no shot at victory.
For Briscoe and Almirola, they didn't have the speed in the final run, finishing 5th and 6th.
Unluckily for Preece, he had a speeding in the pits penalty in the 2nd stage. A mistake on his own end, unlike Harvick, put Preece in a tough position to fight back. Preece would still finish 15th capping off a nice day for SHR.
Pit Stop Wins & Losses
As mentioned with Larson and the SHR drivers, this race was decided on the final pit stop. Yeley's caution with 57 laps to go meant drivers had to make a crucial decision:
* Stay out for the end with track position or fight with new tires? Logano, Almirola, Hamlin and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. all stayed out. Those four drivers all finished in the top 10.
* Then, both Larson and Suarez took two tires. Things worked out for Larson but not Suarez, given his 17th-place finish. Overall, the right call was to stay out with better track position.
* Some of the faster drivers who pitted got the bad end of the stick, including Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick, and William Byron all finished outside of the top 10.
This race provided exciting strategy calls and if this is any indicator of what's to come for the playoff race later this year, fans should be excited!
Chase Elliott Returns
The big news all week was that NASCAR's most popular driver would be returning to the paper clip.
There was so much hype around Elliott that commercials and advertisements from tracks about Elliott's return caused some division amongst fans.
After suffering a broken leg in a snowboarding incident, Elliott did everything right in this race to finish 10th. With such a brake-focused track, Elliott finding the groove again and finishing top 10 could be a sign that the win needed for the playoffs could come sooner rather than later.
And, of course, if he does earn a win in the next 18 races, NASCAR would be hard-pressed not to grant him Elliott a waiver to participate in the playoffs.
Elliott battled in the middle of the pack all day with an average running position outside the top 20. Howevedr, he had a fantastic final stage as he gained 10 positions after the yellow to get 10th place.
NASCAR heads to Talladega next week and Elliott will be bringing a lot of confidence with him.
Overall Summary of the Race
A great race followed by Kyle Larson bringing home a grandfather clock rounds up a triple-header weekend at Martinsville. NASCAR heads to the fastest Superspeedway on the calendar next as the drivers wrap up a tiring weekend in Virginia.