MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet), made a late-race, two-tire pit stop and drove away to a commanding 4.142-second win over second-place Joey Logano in Sunday’s NOCO 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
It marks the second win of the season for the 30-year-old Californian who joins his teammate William Byron as the only multiple race winners of the year. Larson was recently named one of NASCAR’s 75 greatest drivers ever, as well.
Twenty-four of the 36 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap. There were five caution periods for a total of 50 laps.
Christopher Bell remains the championship leader after Martinsville with a five-point advantage over second-place Ross Chastain.
- Stage 1 Winner: Ryan Preece of Stewart-Haas Racing (Ford)
- Stage 2 Winner: Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing (Ford)
SHR Race Finish:
- Chase Briscoe (Started 4th, Finished 5th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
- Aric Almirola (Started 3rd, Finished 6th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
- Ryan Preece (Started 1st, Finished 15th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
- Kevin Harvick (Started 7th, Finished 20th / Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
SHR Points:
- Kevin Harvick (3rd with 287 points, 15 out of first)
- Chase Briscoe (14th with 210 points, 92 out of first)
- Aric Almirola (26th with 143 points, 159 out of first)
- Ryan Preece (27th with 140 points, 162 out of first)
Briscoe earned his second top-five and third top-10 of the season. It was also his first top-five and third top-10 in five career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Martinsville.
Briscoe equaled his best result this year. He also finished fifth last Sunday on the dirt at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
This was Briscoe’s fourth straight top-15. He finished 15th March 26 at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, 12th April 2 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway and fifth last Sunday at Bristol.
“It would’ve been more of a statement if we won the race, obviously,” said Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang. “I thought, as a company, we had a really good day. All four cars were in contention. I felt like a Stewart-Haas car probably should’ve won the race and we just couldn’t catch the breaks we needed there at the end, but, overall, a great day. That’s something that, as a company, we needed to go and run up front. All four cars were really competitive. I wish one of us would’ve won the race, but you’ll have that. We’ll go on to next week and, hopefully, we can continue this speed and this momentum as a company.”
Briscoe’s fifth-place result bettered his previous best finish at Martinsville – ninth, earned twice (April 2022 and October 2022).
He finished fifth in Stage 1 to earn six bonus points and second in Stage 2 to collect another nine bonus points. Briscoe led twice for 109 laps to increase his laps led total at Martinsville to 134.
Almirola earned his first top-10 of the season and his eighth top-10 in 29 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Martinsville.
Martinsville was Almirola’s best finish so far this year. His previous best was 13th, earned April 2 at Richmond.
“It’s crazy that Martinsville is a track-position race,” said Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang. “The cars are so close and so competitive. I thought we were, arguably, the best car in the first part of the race, and then we got a little bit behind as the track changed and the car changed a little bit. Then after that, we got the car really well. Drew (Blickensderfer, crew chief) made some great adjustments and I thought we were, arguably, the best car. We went through that green flag pit sequence and then a caution comes out for a wheel and gives a lot of those guys just a free gift that stayed out. A lot of those guys we had lapped already in the race, and it’s just so hard to pass that you give those guys track position and you start behind them on the same tires. It’s hard to pass.”
This was Almirola’s fourth straight top-15 at Martinsville. He finished sixth in October 2021, eighth in April 2022, and 15th last October.
Almirola finished second in Stage 1 to earn nine bonus points and ninth in Stage 2 to earn two additional bonus points.
Preece’s 15th-place result bettered his previous best finish at Martinsville – 16th, earned in March 2019.
He won Stage 1 to earn 10 bonus points and one playoff point. Preece led once for a race-high 135 laps – his first laps led at Martinsville.
“I sped off pit road, I guess. That ultimately cost us the track position,” said Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang. “We had a really fast racecar, so once we got in the back it was so hard to do anything, so that’s on me. I’ll take the blame for that. I was trying to beat them out and ultimately got snapped speeding. It’s unfortunate, but when we had track position I think it showed that we had a really fast HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang, but you can’t do those things. You can’t make mistakes. I pride myself on not making mistakes, so that was pretty brutal there, but, like I’ve said, we have a fast racecar and really felt like we could’ve probably swept the stages and ran top-three or top-five. We were just as good as anybody, but it was really tough. Dirty air against the pack. You didn’t want to smash them out of the way, but it was really hard to move around.”
Preece led more laps in the NOCO 400 at Martinsville than he had in his entire Cup Series career. Prior to Martinsville, Preece had led just 29 laps in 123 career starts. This is Preece’s first season with SHR.
He earned his first career Cup Series pole on Saturday during qualifying for the NOCO 400. It was the 58th Cup Series pole for SHR and its second pole in as many days. Cole Custer won the pole on Friday during qualifying for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville. Between Cup and Xfinity, SHR has scored 75 poles in its 15-year history.
Harvick finished sixth in Stage 1 to earn five bonus points. He then won Stage 2 to earn 10 more bonus points and one playoff point. He led twice for 20 laps to increase his laps-led total at Martinsville to 648.
Harvick has now led 11,549 laps since joining SHR in 2014. He has led 15,964 laps in his entire NASCAR Cup Series career.
Since joining SHR in 2014, Harvick has only one finish outside the top 20 at Martinsville, a span of 19 races.
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the GEICO 500 on Sunday, April 23 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The race begins at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
