Kyle Larson Continues Inching Closer to First Superspeedway Victory

Kyle Larson finished second in Sunday's Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, his best finish on a superspeedway. The champion driver is inching in on his first drafting track win. | Josh Calloni, Racing America On SI

Since he first joined the NASCAR Cup Series on a full-time basis in 2014, the superspeedways (Daytona, Talladega, and now Atlanta) haven’t exactly been very kind to Kyle Larson.

In his 50 starts on drafting tracks, the Elk Grove, California-native has never managed to visit Victory Lane on this specific track type, and until very recently, never found himself in contention to alter that reality.

Though, during Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, you wouldn’t know any of that to be true, as Larson put forward his best-ever performance on a drafting track, both in the middle portion of the race, and with the end result.

Larson was originally credited with a third-place finish but was promoted to the runner-up spot following post-race inspection, when Ryan Preece and the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse were disqualified for issues with the spoiler.

Throughout Sunday’s 500-mile contest, Larson was hanging out around the middle to tail-end of the lead draft as the stage end approached but methodically worked his way through traffic to earn an incredible amount of stage points – winning the race’s first stage, and finishing third in the second stage, colleting the most stage points of anybody on-track.

That, coupled with his second-place result, gave Larson 54 points on the afternoon – the most for a non-winner on a drafting track in the stage racing era (from 2017 to present).

How strong was @KyleLarsonRacin on Sunday?

With a second-place race result and stage finishes of first and third place, the @TeamHendrick driver earned 54 points -- the most for a non-winner on a drafting track in the stage racing era.#NASCAR pic.twitter.com/mK6VOMcxB3

— Joseph Srigley (@joe_srigley) April 28, 2025

It was a pretty clean run to the finish, not just for Larson, but the entire NASCAR Cup Series field, with a 62-lap green-flag run that included no on-track incidents.

But, despite having track position, there was nothing that could be done for the 32-year-old driver, as he and his teammate at Hendrick Motorsports, William Byron, were stuck in a gridlock situation behind the race’s leaders, Austin Cindric and Ryan Preece, who were side-by-side leading the inside and outside lanes.

“There wasn’t really much I could do the final five laps,” said Larson. “I wanted to go to the outside lane when we got clear of William [Byron], but I felt like the gap was too big to move up and [Ryan Preece] was able to fill it. I was still happy to be second row on the inside lane, obviously happy to be front row, but I just didn’t know how it was going to play out there.”

“There at the end, you’re just trying to give the right pushes to get clear and then maybe he starts blocking lanes and something would open up for me. I was just kind of jammed up there.”

Regardless of the circumstances, a second-place finish for Kyle Larson at a superspeedway is a fantastic change of pace for the driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, who now owns back-to-back top-fives on the largest oval track on the circuit, after a top five last Fall.

“I will take a third-place finish,” Larson added. “We had a great day, points-wise, for this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team. Winning the first stage was a bit unexpected, and then finishing third in the second stage from where we were on the final restart was also unexpected. Just a really good day, overall, for the No. 5 team.”

The next step for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion? A victory on a superspeedway, something that has alluded him throughout his entire career. However, something that was once a significant weakness for the 32-year-old, is slowly but surely turning into a strong point for the No. 5 team’s racing campaign.