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For the first time since March of last year, the NASCAR Cup Series made its return to the Golden State at Sonoma Raceway in California. Giving Elk Grove's Kyle Larson the chance to keep up his hot streak in front of his home state fans.
After having the dominant car throughout the day, Kyle Larson held off Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott on an overtime restart to win the Toyota/Save Mart 350, picking up his second win in a row and third this season. Elliott finished second, followed by Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Ross Chastain, Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, and Ryan Blaney.
Despite a number of alternate strategies that shuffled the running order throughout the day, Larson time and again showed he had the fastest car, driving through the field to take the lead on several occasions before a number of late-race restarts forced him to be at his best in crunch time.
"I felt like I did a good job the [restart] before and stretched out a little bit, and then didn't want to them give another try at it. But [Chase] kept the pressure on. Martin was strong too. But what a car," Larson told Fox Sports. "... I thought I would be okay today, but I just didn't know how I would race. I don't think any of us really knew with no practice. But our car was really good there. Can't say enough about it."
Larson's victory is the fourth in a row for Hendrick Motorsports dating back to Alex Bowman's win at Dover last month, and it gives the team yet another historic accomplishment coming off of a Coca-Cola 600 victory that made them the winningest team in NASCAR history: Sunday marked four races in a row where cars from the same team finished first and second in four consecutive races, matching a mark set by car owner Carl Kiekhaefer's team in the 1950s.
With 16 races now in the books, the NASCAR Cup Series enters its All-Star Week, with Texas Motor Speedway playing host to the All-Star Race next Sunday night.
