Kyle Larson Earns Dominant Food City 500 Win at Bristol

Kyle Larson celebrates an emotional, dominant win in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Kyle Larson entered Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway as a man on a mission. Prior to arriving at the 0.533-mile concrete short track, Larson and his Hendrick Motorsports comrades mourned the passing of Jon Edwards.

Edwards, a communications professional who worked with Jeff Gordon and Larson in his career spanning back toKyle Larson Drives to Dominant Bass Pro Shops Night Race Win the early 1990s, was on the minds of his Hendrick friends and colleagues. Larson leapt to the front on Lap 40, leading all but 89 of the 500 laps en route to his second win of the season and third overall at Bristol.

Going into Sunday’s race, teams prepared for excessive tire degradation or tire wear issues like last year’s 500-lapper. Instead, with conditions about 15 degrees warmer than Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions, Larson feasted on the competition like he did in last September’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race.

With Larson leading the way, Spire Motorsports‘ Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley made incredible strides. The two young racers from the rising organization had the makings to battle the likes of Denny Hamlin, Ty Gibbs and Alex Bowman for the best in class.

Meanwhile, Larson drove his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet with near-perfect precision, commanding a car with exceptional handling and race pace. No matter the lane, the native of Elk Grove, California, looked like he was in his own playground against those who vied to stay on the lead lap.

Sweeping Stages 1 and 2, the only threat to Larson’s winning bid was Ryan Blaney‘s bold Stage 3 pit strategy. As the field opted to pit for fresh tires for their only pit stop of the final stanza, Blaney and his No. 12 Menards/Richmond Water Heaters Ford team gambled to pit as late as possible to trap the field a lap behind and carve an easy path to victory.

However, the gamble was not to be for Blaney as he pitted on Lap 440, realizing the fight was lost when Larson drove past him to return to the lead lap, regaining the lead a lap later.

Ironically, the only threat to Larson’s victory was his own driving. Inside the final three laps, Larson overdrove Turn 1, scraping the wall — yet somehow clocked a sub-17 second lap, regaining control of his car and bearings en route to a win over Hamlin by 2.25 seconds.

Winning two of the three races during this Bristol weekend, Larson performed a Polish Victory Lap, driving clockwise around the track before doing a burnout in the frontstretch and celebrating with his new pit crew.

Kyle Larson burns it down after winning Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Holden Barnes | The Podium Finish)

“This one is definitely for Jon. He is just a great guy here, so we’re going to miss him, but successful weekend here,” Larson said. “Wish he was going to be here with us to celebrate, but I know he’s celebrating with us in spirit.

“Yeah, just a flawless race once again here at Bristol for the 5 team. Really, really good car. That was a lot of fun. You know, however many laps of green we ran, there was a lot of fun. I was pretty comfortable with things. Then Denny came on really strong there before the pit cycle, and then, yeah, just kind of kept the pressure on from there.”

Seemingly driving with one eye on the mirror and the other on the track, Larson realized he had to make decisive, wise passes to maintain or extend his advantage over his challengers.

“I knew I had to make some good moves in traffic,” Larson recalled. “Felt like I did a pretty good job there in traffic. Split the middle sometimes when I needed to. So, yeah, just a lot of fun. A little bit out of breath. Just so high-paced here, and heart rate is up.

“So really cool. Thanks to Hendrickcars.com, Chevy, Prime, Valvoline, this whole team. You know, the pit crew, this is their first win with the 5 team. It’s going to be fun celebrating with them. Yeah, good to be back at victory lane.”

Perhaps Larson enjoyed the fact that the pace was nothing like last year’s Food City 500 when he realized the tires would not wear out as fast, dropping the hammer to bring the race’s average speed to 100.745 mph.

“Early on, yeah, we were all kind of just riding in line like we did in the spring last year, and I was just trying to keep an eye on the track,” he shared. “I felt like, you know, it was starting to get a little bit darker on exit, so I was, like, All right, that means some rubber is laying down.

“Then people kind of got the middle working. Then we get back down. I was like, ‘Screw it, I’m just going to go to the lead here and pick the pace up and maybe the pace will help lay the rubber down even more.’ It did, and it turned into a normal Bristol track there for us. So really played in our favor. Obviously having track position helps a lot.”

Following a Darlington debacle and Hamlin’s two-race winning streak, Larson played into the fun rivalry, acknowledging the fans for ending the Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s victorious ways.

“You know, if Denny is in front of me, it could be a totally different story and be really hard to pass him, but glad to stop his three-peat,” Larson smirked. “We hate to see him win, as I’m sure you guys do too. It’s just good to be back here at Victory Lane.”

Hamlin tipped his cap to Larson while acknowledging absent friends following a solid performance for his No. 11 Progressive Toyota team.

“You have to give that team their due – just a dominant performance,” Hamlin said. “It looked like a pretty flawless day for them. It looked pretty easy. It was all I had to try to keep up there. I’m glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run with our Progressive Toyota, but this weekend – we are all thinking about Jon Edwards’ family, Al Pearce, Shige Hattori.

“We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over the last week, so our thoughts are with them. Wish we could have got one more spot, but I just wanted to keep him honest there at the end. That was all I was trying to do, but he was a little too much to handle.”

Gibbs’ podium finish provided some relief to his No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota efforts after a difficult start to the season. Unlike last year, the 22-year-old racer goes into the bye week with a smile and sense of contentment.

“It was a good day. I was kind of managing the race and figuring out the way we needed to be,” Gibbs said. “It was fun. I had a blast. We’ve definitely made an improvement. Thank you to Monster Energy, SAIA and Toyota. It was fun.”

Kyle Larson wields his sword for FOX NASCAR’s Chris Myers and Jamie McMurray after winning Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)

About the only other driver to have fun at Bristol was Larson, going two out of three in “Thunder Valley.” While Larson may have come up a spot short in Friday night’s Truck race to execute the first, true NASCAR weekend sweep since Kyle Busch in 2017, he will not complain as he seeks more triple duty efforts in 2026.

“I race a lot, so it’s cool to win two times in a row on the same weekend, but I don’t overthink it or celebrate it too much, I guess,” Larson said. “I just love to race, and I love Bristol and was really excited about this weekend. Obviously, wish I could have been one spot better on Friday to join Kyle, but regardless, I had a great time this weekend and got to lead a bunch of laps and challenge for wins and win a couple of them.

“Yeah, proud of it, and hopefully get the chance to do it again in the future. You know, next year would be — I’m done racing trucks and Xfinity for this year, so hopefully the schedule lays out right next year where I can try again.”

Stage 1 Top 10 Results

1. Kyle Larson
2. Denny Hamlin
3. Justin Haley
4. Alex Bowman
5. Carson Hocevar
6. Christopher Bell
7. Ryan Blaney
8. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
9. Ty Gibbs
10. AJ Allmendinger

Stage 2 Top 10 Results

1. Kyle Larson
2. Alex Bowman
3. Christopher Bell
4. Carson Hocevar
5. Denny Hamlin
6. Justin Haley
7. Ty Gibbs
8. Ryan Blaney
9. Chase Briscoe
10. Tyler Reddick

Kyle Larson’s revamped pit crew executed smooth pit stops in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Holden Barnes | The Podium Finish)

Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway Race Results