For the first part of Sunday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race on the dirt track at Bristol Motor Speedway, it looked like Kyle Larson might be on target to add to his already impressive dirt track career win total.
Larson, a dirt racing supernova who started from pole, won the first stage and took only fuel — no fresh tires — heading to the final segment. But Larson spun on his own 96 laps from the end, had to pit and restarted at the back of the field.
Larson's race ended for good some 20 laps later after bumping several times with Ryan Preece between turn three all the way to turn one. Larson, the winner last week at Richmond, drove into the garage.
Preece was angered by earlier contact with Larson and gave him a hand gesture soon after to make that clear as their cars passed each other.
“I'm guessing he was paying me back for whatever I did earlier,” said Larson, who was 35th. “He rode me straight into the fence.”
“No, I was just trying to run the top. You guys saw it,” said Preece, who finished 24th. “He was running the top and making ground and I tried to move up and it’s really slick if you’re not in the right spot, not racing dirt, I guess you figure that out.”
LOGANO'S UP AND DOWN WEEKEND
It wasn't the outing two-time NASCAR champ Joey Logano wanted on the Bristol dirt.
Logano, who won the truck race at the track Saturday night, struggled to find his way and was behind the wall with his hood up less than halfway through.
“It was an eventful face for the short amount of laps we got to run,” Logano said. “It seemed like every wreck in front of me, I got up in the middle of it.”
Logano thought he had a competitive car, but broke his steering on a hard hit then “clobbered a fence after that.”
Logano had his hood up behind the wall at lap 104. He registered 37th — last place. It's the second time that's happened this season to the reigning champion, the other being Las Vegas last month. He only had two in his NASCAR career before 2023.
UP NEXT
NASCAR stays on the short tracks and heads back to Virginia when the Cup Series runs at Martinsville on Sunday. William Byron, already a two-time winner this season, is the defending champion for Martinsville's spring race.
