The Pure Michigan 400 came down to the last 10 laps and came between two rookies that had to get to victory lane to keep their chase hopefuls alive – Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott.
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The duo examines the emotional win by Kyle Larson at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday and Chase Elliott’s phenomenal rookie year. However, thanks to a late caution flag, Larson was able to pass Elliot with nine laps left to win the race.
Larson’s victory snapped a 99-race losing streak for Chip Ganassi Racing.
With the win, Larson secured a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup with two races left in the regular season.
It took longer than some expected, but one of NASCAR’s future stars won for the first time in his career on Sunday. Clauson passed away on August 7th from injuries sustained in a Midget auto crash.
But Ganassi has shown patience with his NASCAR rebuild and he’s got faith in the 24-year-old Larson.
Ganassi said he wasn’t surprised to hear Larson talk about his friend Clauson so soon after winning.
It came down to a couple of good drivers unfamiliar with victory lane.
Larson then exited his auto, took the checkered flag from the flag man and leapt into the arms of his fueler, who had run out into the infield to congratulate his driver. I can’t say enough about the kid and the job he’s done over the last few years. “It was finally going to be it”. “This one’s for the Clauson family”. We really miss Bryan. We parked it for him so that was really cool. He is the first graduate of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity and NASCAR Next programs to win a Sprint Cup race.
“It means a lot and for Kyle”, said crew chief Chad Johnston during the NBCSN broadcast. “We messed up that last stop, but we made it back”. Elliott began to pull away after the two encountered traffic while navigating around the 2.5 mile tri-oval.
Larson trailed Elliott when Michael Annett blew a tire on Lap 187.
Under special low downforce rules that were being tested for 2017, Larson, who finished third at the 2.0-mile track in June, had the fastest auto in the field. Larson restarted second and both drivers spun their tires severely as they tried to accelerate towards turn 1.
A late caution would setup a great duel for the win between he and Chase Elliott.
“Bummer again here”, said Elliott, making no attempt to hide his disappointment. “Next thing you know, we were off to the races”. We’ve been second plenty of times.
“Just made another mistake”, Elliott said. I asked my guys to bail me out on the final pit stop, and they did. “This one’s different just because of how long we had to wait and how much harder I’ve had to work for it”. “I’m really exhausted of losing races here with parts falling apart, so they’ll hear about it on Tuesday”. “At the end, I gave Kyle a really good push”. Need to do my restarts a little better. Emerging with the lead after pitting was Chase Elliott. Of the eight Chevrolet drivers now inside the Chase cutoff, seven have Hendrick power, but only two – Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott – drive for Rick Hendrick.
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Rounding out the top 10: Ryan Blaney finished fourth, Kevin Harvick ended up fifth, Jimmie Johnson finished sixth, Carl Edwards finished seventh, Jamie McMurray ended up eighth, Denny Hamlin finished ninth and Joey Logano ended up in 10th position.
