- Larson bags his second win of the season in NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
- Victory came at Texas Motor Speedway, where he entered as defending champion.
- HMS driver admitted he doubted chances with Justin Allgaier closing in behind him.
Kyle Larson’s Cup run this season has not gone as many had in mind, including the driver himself. Yet in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, he has been stacking wins, with the latest coming at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday.
The result marked his second win in the series this season after Las Vegas, and at Texas, it stood as a repeat, with Larson entering as the defending race winner following his NOAPS victory at the track last year.
Justin Allgaier started from pole with the pace to control the race, but Larson’s record at Texas proved hard to match, as he worked his way into contention and stayed in the fight through each phase of the race.
Larson holds off Allgaier for his 19th O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race win
Starting from third, Kyle Larson moved up to challenge Allgaier for the lead by Lap 7. A loose moment set him back for a stretch, and by Lap 24, Larson and Allgaier traded contact more than once while battling on the front row through Turns 1 and 2.
Allgaier took Stage 1, with Connor Zilisch in P2, while Larson settled into P3 at the end of the stage. In Stage 2, the fight shifted again. On Lap 54, Zilisch moved ahead of Allgaier off Turn 2, but Larson dove to the inside and cleared both for the lead entering Turn 3.
Zilisch stayed on Larson’s bumper and later took the lead back. By the end of Stage 2, Zilisch secured the stage win, while Larson slipped to P4, having led only two laps across the first two stages.
The final stage tilted in Larson’s favor completely. A series of exchanges involving Larson, Zilisch, and Brent Crews off Turn 4 saw contact more than once, with Larson emerging ahead. Within three laps, he stretched his lead to 1.142 seconds over Zilisch, and by Lap 118, that margin grew to 2.746 seconds over Crews.
By Lap 172, Allgaier had worked his way back into the picture, trimming the gap from 2.641 seconds to 1.912 seconds. With 12 laps remaining, Larson’s lead stood at 0.478 seconds under green, and with seven laps to go, Allgaier cut it further to 0.239 seconds.
Allgaier closed in during the closing laps but could not find a way past Larson, who held on to claim his second O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win in four starts this season by leading 93 of the 200-lap race event.
Larson thought he didn’t have a chance to win.
With Allgaier reeling him in over the final stretch, Kyle Larson admitted he did not expect to hold on.
“I really didn’t think I had a chance there with Justin behind me. He was really good, catching me there on that long run after the (earlier) green-flag stop (on Lap 145 of 200),” Larson said.
“I was just hoping in clean air I could kind of get away, like I did the run before to start stage 3, but he was (able to get) behind me, and he could run a lot of different lanes back there, too. I was trying to do what I could to take his air away while also maintaining a good corner for myself, but he was always closing on me.”
Larson credited Allgaier for racing him without contact, calling it a run to the finish that held together to the line.
“Contact’s great”
Allgaier, meanwhile, said the short runs worked against him through the race. He pointed to being too far out on the splitter early in runs, which cost him ground and forced him to fight back.
Allgaier said, “The first three or four laps I was just too out on the splitter and couldn’t catch him, and then once we did, he was able to block all the lanes I needed. I thought we were going to get in a pretty big moment there out of two. I got to the outside, he kind of run me up over the top, and I didn’t know what to do at that point.”
“I mean, without contact, I don’t know how you get by him, and I listen, I’ve done this a long time, and contact’s great. But it’s just easy to put the guy behind you in a bad spot, and we needed a Junior Motorsports win today, regardless if it was him or me, and I think we did what we needed to do.”
He added that there was no clean path past Larson in the closing laps unless a mistake opened the door. Track position and clean air, he said, would have been the key to turning the race around.
