Kyle Larson dominated the high concrete banks of Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night, leading 462 of 500 laps to win the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race in Bristol, Tennessee.
In the three-race, 16-race finale, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver started second but ran one spot higher for much of the night at the half-mile bullring in the Tennessee mountains.
Larson had his most dominant performance yet in the points race, beating teammate Chase Elliott by 7.088 seconds to record his fifth win of 2024.
Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell rounded out the top five.
Rounding out the top 10 were Ryan Blaney, Ryan Preece, Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman and Ross Chastain.
With the bottom four drivers eliminated in this round, any hopes of winning the title were dashed.
Failing to advance to the Round of 12 at Kansas Speedway next Sunday were Ty Gibbs, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Harrison Burton.
Denny Hamlin, who had fallen below the cut line before the 29th race of the season, advanced past the cut and essentially swapped spots with Gibbs, who had entered safely before the 500-lap race.
Truex’s loss ended any hopes of him winning his final full-time season in the series.
Larson came out strong early in the 125-lap Stage 1, passing pole-sitter Bowman and then finishing one lap behind championship contender Keselowski later in the segment.
The No. 5 Chevrolet held on to the lead, with Larson scoring his 11th stage win of the season, with Bowman and Bell finishing second and third, respectively.
Larson, the 2021 Cup champion, was dominant again in the second stage, holding off Truex and Hamlin to extend his segment win tally to 12.
Late in the race, on lap 329, Josh Berry’s No. 4 Ford sent Corey LaJoie’s No. 7 Chevrolet into the wall on the backstretch, allowing Larson and Hamlin to form a pack at the front.
The possibility of a playoff spot emerged during a subsequent pit stop, when Truex was caught speeding on pit road and restarted in the mid-20s, after which he was unable to recover and finished the race in 24th place, not advancing to the next stage.