Larson plays spoiler in Dixie Vodka 400, but Chastain was biggest winner by finishing 2nd

Kyle Larson took his first lead on the 37th lap of the 2022 Dixie Vodka 400 on Sunday and, essentially, never let it go.

In the third to last race of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series, Larson played spoiler with a dominant win at Homestead-Miami Speedway, leaving three spots in the Championship 4 up for grabs when the Round of 8 wraps up next weekend with the 2022 Xfinity 500.

Larson, who drives the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro for Hendrick Motorsports, won all three stages of the Dixie Vodka 400, only giving up his grip on the top spot for any significant length of time when he started to go pit right before a caution on the 212th lap. He dropped to third upon the restart, but was able to climb back quickly and win by 1.261 seconds after leading 199 of 267 laps.

“It means a lot. I don’t know what my career laps led is here, but it’s got to be close to a thousand laps led in the Cup Series,” said Larson, who now has five top-five finishes at Homestead-Miami. “I’ve got a list of excuses of why I’ve never won here, but, hey, it doesn’t matter. I got it done today and I think it makes it feel even more special.”

A few minutes later, he heaped praise upon South Florida’s track.

“It’s perfect,” he said, “and it continues to get better.”

Trackhouse Racing Team’s Ross Chastain finished second and Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger finished barely a hundredth of a second later for third place.

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Although Larson won the race, Chastain was the biggest winner of the weekend.

Seven drivers are still vying for three open spots in the championship — Joey Logano, who drives the No. 22 Ford Mustang for Team Penske, clinched his spot by opening the Round of 8 with a win last Sunday in Las Vegas — and a win this weekend would’ve been an automatic berth for other contenders. Larson, however, didn’t qualify for the Round of 8, meaning those three spots are still up in the air heading into the penultimate race of the season next week and at least two of those spots will come down to points.

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Chastain, who grew up on a watermelon farm in Alva and drives the No. 1 Camaro for a team owned by Grammy Award-winning rapper Pitbull, did the most for himself in the points department by finishing second in Homestead. He now sits 19 points above the cut line — the best among unqualified championship contenders — line after scoring 38 this weekend.

It was his second straight second-place finish in the Round of 8 after he was the runner-up at the 2022 South Point 400 last weekend.

“It’s days like today and last week where we haven’t started the best, we haven’t scored a ton of stage points,” Chastain said, “but we’ve put ourselves in position and we execute.”

Chase Elliott, who drives the No. 9 Camaro for Hendrick, is eight points behind Chastain. William Byron, who drives the No. 24 Camaro for Hendrick, jumped into the top four by scoring 42 points, and now trails Chastain by 14 with a five-point edge on Denny Hamlin, who drives the No. 11 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Penske’s Ryan Blaney, Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe round out the rest of the top eight, in order. All three are at least 18 points shy of the cut line, with Briscoe bringing up the rear after wrecking during Stage 2.

Briscoe withdraws with mechanical issue

Briscoe’s day ended on the 161st lap when he bumped the wall at Turn 2 and busted his upper control arm. The front of his No. 14 Mustang went up in smoke after the collision and he quickly radioed to his crew chief to tell his team the car was “broke bad.”

He and his Stewart-Haas team spent a few moments debating whether he should take the car into garage — drivers can not return to the track if they go to the garage — or see if he could go on despite the damage before eventually backing up on the track and calling it a day.

Briscoe ran most of the race along the wall and, back outside the top 20, was trying to cut it as close as possible to make up ground. Ultimately, he slipped — he told NASCAR on NBC it felt like he “hit ice” — and clipped the wall enough to catastrophically damage his vehicle.

Now 44 points below the cut line, Briscoe faces a virtual must-win situation next Sunday at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.

The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race is next month at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona.