Larson Wins Bristol In Fastest Short Track Race

(BRISTOL, TN – APRIL 13, 2025 – RIS) Kyle Larson picked up where he left off in Saturday’s Xfinity race, dominating the Food City 500 by leading 411 laps on the “Last Great Colosseum” at Bristol Motor Speedway and averaging just over 100 mph for the race. Larson’s victory is his 31st in NASCAR Cup competition.

Alex Bowman led the first laps of the race at Bristol followed by Ricky Stenhouse Jr, with Ty Gibbs unable to get to the inside line and dropping back outside the top ten in the firsts ten laps before slotting into fifteenth, only barely clearing the front bumper of Zane Smith.

Bowman led the first 40 laps but the field was unable to resist the flying No. 5 of Kyle Larson who seemed intent on repeating his exhibition of speed in Saturday’s race, leading the rest of the caution-free first stage. Denny Hamlin, Justin Haley, Bowman and Carson Hocevar filled out the first five runners as the end of the 125-lap stage.

After the pit stops, Larson held onto the lead, choosing the outside line, flanked by Hamlin but Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley got around Hamlin. Hamlin quickly regained third place, with Bowman running in fifth place.

Cody Ware and Shane Van Gisbergen touched and spun to bring out the first incident yellow of the race on lap 177. The top eight cars stayed on the track with Ricky Stenhouse pitting from ninth place, leading a long line of cars into the pits. John Hunter Nemechek’s car lost a centerlock nut off a left-side wheel with the wheel rolling down pit road and bouncing off a car. The penalty sent Nemechek to the end of the longer line for the restart. 

Larson jumped into the lead, followed by Hamlin and Bowman, with Bowman getting around Hamlin for second, followed by Christopher Bell and Alex Haley. Larson and Bowman led to the end of the second stage, half-way through the race, with Bell, Hocevar and Hamlin the rest of the top five at the green and white checkered flag.

Larson continued his lead, with Hamlin taking second, Bowman third and Ty Gibbs fourth as the field settled down after the restart. After about 90 laps of green flag running, Larson had stretched his lead over Hamlin to about four seconds. Ty Gibbs lost a little time to Hamlin until he cleared lapped traffic, when he started closing. Another hundred laps had Hamlin close to within second of the leader, with Hocevar, Blaney and Byron following.

While running in third place, Alex Bowman slowed, then on lap 300 pulled the No. 48 Chevy off the track from tenth place and eventually drove to the garage, telling the crew that the engine was about to expire.

Starting at about 115 laps left, the leaders started pitting for tires and fuel, Larson dropping back a lap to seventh, followed by Hamlin, but the cars in front of the group who stopped had pitted earlier with Blaney, Reddick, Wallace, Keselowski and Preece running in the top five positions.

Nobody had a shot at Larson as he went on to ‘win one for Jon’ – Jon Edwards, a long-time Hendrick public relations agent, passed away this week. “I know he’s still with us in spirit,” said Larson. “Yeah, it’s special. You know, Jon Edwards meant a lot to the 5 team, and a lot to the NASCAR Industry, too. Just good to get a win for him. Obviously, we don’t want to be winning for him and his spirit, we wish he was here in person with us. But he is no longer here, so it’s just going to be fun to celebrate and I know he is smiling down on us. We had a damn good weekend, as he would say. A lot of fun, and I can’t say enough about the team. The car they brought again here to Bristol was amazing and just makes it fun for me.

“It’s fun. I love this place because it is just so high paced and with traffic; just dicing it up and picking the right lines at the right time while conserving your tires. It’s like a 500 lap sprint car race. It just suits me and my style with quick decision making. I just love this place. I think a lot of us do here in this series. Just had another good race,” Larson added.

Second-place finisher Denny Hamlin commented that: “you have to give that team their due – just a dominant performance. It looked like a pretty flawless day for them. It looked pretty easy. It was all I had to try to keep up there. I’m glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run with our Progressive Toyota, but this weekend – we are all thinking about Jon Edwards’ family, Al Pearce, Shige Hattori. We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over the last week, so our thoughts are with them. Wish we could have got one more spot, but I just wanted to keep him honest there at the end. That was all I was trying to do, but he was a little too much to handle.”

Unofficial Results: Food City 500, April 13, 2025 - Bristol Motor Speedway
Fin, Str, Driver, Car, Laps, St1, St2, Tms Led, Laps Led, Playoff Pts, Pts, Status
1) 3, Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, 500, 1, 1, 2, 411, 7, 60, Running
2) 4, Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Progressive Toyota, 500, 2, 5, , , , 50, Running
3) 6, Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota, 500, 9, 7, , , , 40, Running
4) 14, Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, 500, , 9, , , , 35, Running
5) 5, Ryan Blaney, No. 12 Menards/Richmond Water Heaters Ford, 500, 7, 8, 1, 48, , 39, Running
6) 26, William Byron, No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet, 500, , , , , , 31, Running
7) 35, Ross Chastain, No. 1 Busch Light Flannel Chevrolet, 500, , , , , , 30, Running
8) 7, Christopher Bell, No. 20 Rheem Toyota, 500, 6, 3, , , , 42, Running
9) 8, AJ Allmendinger, No. 16 Grizzly Nicotine Pouches Chevrolet, 499, 10, , , , , 30, Running
10) 17, Austin Dillon, No. 3 Get Bioethanol Chevrolet, 499, , , , , , 27, Running
11) 9, Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Chili's Ride the 'Dente Chevrolet, 499, 5, 4, 1, 2, , 39, Running
12) 11, Josh Berry, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford, 499, , , , , , 25, Running
13) 10, Justin Haley, No. 7 NationsGuard Chevrolet, 499, 3, 6, , , , 37, Running
14) 15, Kyle Busch, No. 8 Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet, 499, , , , , , 23, Running
15) 20, Chase Elliott, No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, 499, , , , , , 22, Running
16) 16, Brad Keselowski, No. 6 Kroger/Oscar Mayer/Rustik Ovens Ford, 498, , , , , , 21, Running
17) 21, Austin Cindric, No. 2 Snap on Ford, 498, , , , , , 20, Running
18) 27, Tyler Reddick, No. 45 The Beast Toyota, 498, , 10, , , , 20, Running
19) 22, Bubba Wallace, No. 23 U.S. Air Force Toyota, 498, , , , , , 18, Running
20) 29, Ryan Preece, No. 60 Boost by Kroger Ford, 498, , , , , , 17, Running
21) 32, John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42 Dollar Tree Toyota, 498, , , , , , 16, Running
22) 2, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47 SUNNYD Chevrolet, 498, 8, , , , , 18, Running
23) 31, Noah Gragson, No. 4 Rural King Ford, 498, , , , , , 14, Running
24) 38, Joey Logano, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, 497, , , , , , 13, Running
25) 24, Chris Buescher, No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford, 497, , , , , , 12, Running
26) 28, Erik Jones, No. 43 AdventHealth Toyota, 497, , , , , , 11, Running
27) 18, Zane Smith, No. 38 Aaron's Lucky Dog Ford, 497, , , , , , 10, Running
28) 25, Riley Herbst #, No. 35 Lucy Toyota, 496, , , , , , 9, Running
29) 33, Cole Custer, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford, 495, , , , , , 8, Running
30) 13, Michael McDowell, No. 71 Delaware Life Chevrolet, 495, , , , , , 7, Running
31) 19, Jesse Love*(i), No. 33 C4 Energy Chevrolet, 495, , , , , , 0, Running
32) 12, Ty Dillon, No. 10 Okuma Chevrolet, 494, , , , , , 5, Running
33) 23, Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Choice Privileges Chevrolet, 494, , , , , , 4, Running
34) 37, Corey LaJoie*, No. 01 Schluter Systems Ford, 494, , , , , , 3, Running
35) 30, Todd Gilliland, No. 34 Love's Travel Stops Ford, 493, , , , , , 2, Running
36) 34, Cody Ware, No. 51 Arby's Ford, 493, , , , , , 1, Running
37) 1, Alex Bowman, No. 48 Ally Chevrolet, 343, 4, 2, 1, 39, , 17, Engine
38) 36, Shane Van Gisbergen #, No. 88 Safety Culture Chevrolet, 208, , , , , , 1, Suspension
39) 39, Josh Bilicki*(i), No. 66 Manscaped Ford, 193, , , , , , 0, Electrical
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series, (#) Rookie

Race Length: 500 Laps, 266.5 Miles
Time of Race: 2:38:43
Average Speed: 100.85 MPH
Margin of Victory: 2.250 Seconds

Fastest Lap Bonus: No. 16, lap 396, 15.38 sec

Stage 1 Top 10: 5, 11, 7, 48, 77, 20, 12, 47, 54, 16
Stage 2 Top 10: 5, 48, 20, 77, 11, 7, 54, 12, 19, 45

Comments: Kyle Larson has won the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, his 31st career victory in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Prior to the start, the following vehicle(s) dropped to the rear of the field under penalty for the reason indicated: Nos. 22 & 42 (unapproved adjustments).

Cautions: 3 for 40 laps;
Laps: 127-142 (Stage 1 Conclusion [60]);
179-188 (No. 51, 88 Incident Turn 2 [60]);
252-265 (Stage 2 Conclusion [60]).

Lead Changes: 4 among 4 drivers;
A. Bowman 1-39;
K. Larson 40-389;
C. Hocevar 390-391;
R. Blaney 392-439;
K. Larson 440-500.

Unofficial Points: Food City 500, Bristol Motor Speedway
Rank, Driver, Car, Starts, GL, Points, Ldr, Nxt, Race Wins, Stage Wins, Playoff Pts
1) William Byron, 24, 9, 0, 346, 0, 0, 1, 3, 8
2) Denny Hamlin, 11, 9, 0, 316, -30, 30, 2, 2, 12
3) Christopher Bell, 20, 9, 0, 305, -41, 11, 3, 1, 16
4) Kyle Larson, 5, 9, -2, 304, -42, 1, 2, 4, 14
5) Chase Elliott, 9, 9, 1, 278, -68, 26, 0, 0, 0
6) Ryan Blaney, 12, 9, -1, 275, -71, 3, 0, 2, 2
7) Tyler Reddick, 45, 9, 2, 274, -72, 1, 0, 0, 0
8) Bubba Wallace, 23, 9, 0, 251, -95, 23, 0, 1, 1
9) Joey Logano, 22, 9, 0, 245, -101, 6, 0, 2, 2
10) Alex Bowman, 48, 9, 0, 244, -102, 1, 0, 0, 0
11) Ross Chastain, 1, 9, -1, 229, -117, 15, 0, 0, 0
12) Chris Buescher, 17, 9, 1, 227, -119, 2, 0, 0, 0
13) Chase Briscoe, 19, 9, -1, 213, -133, 14, 0, 0, 0
14) Ryan Preece, 60, 9, 1, 201, -145, 12, 0, 1, 1
15) Kyle Busch, 8, 9, 0, 200, -146, 1, 0, 0, 0
16) AJ Allmendinger, 16, 9, 0, 198, -148, 2, 0, 0, 0
17) Josh Berry, 21, 9, -3, 179, -167, 19, 1, 1, 6
18) Ricky Stenhouse Jr, 47, 9, 0, 176, -170, 3, 0, 0, 0
19) Michael McDowell, 71, 9, 2, 174, -172, 2, 0, 0, 0
20) Ty Gibbs, 54, 9, -6, 171, -175, 3, 0, 0, 0
21) John Hunter Nemechek, 42, 9, 2, 171, -175, 0, 0, 0, 0
22) Austin Cindric, 2, 9, 1, 171, -175, 0, 0, 1, 1
23) Justin Haley, 7, 9, -6, 164, -182, 7, 0, 0, 0
24) Zane Smith, 38, 9, 2, 161, -185, 3, 0, 0, 0
25) Carson Hocevar, 77, 9, -5, 157, -189, 4, 0, 0, 0
26) Austin Dillon, 3, 9, -1, 155, -191, 2, 0, 0, 0
27) Daniel Suarez, 99, 9, 3, 151, -195, 4, 0, 0, 0
28) Todd Gilliland, 34, 9, 5, 150, -196, 1, 0, 0, 0
29) Ty Dillon, 10, 9, 4, 146, -200, 4, 0, 0, 0
30) Erik Jones, 43, 9, 2, 139, -207, 7, 0, 0, 0
31) Brad Keselowski, 6, 9, 0, 132, -214, 7, 0, 0, 0
32) Noah Gragson, 4, 9, 0, 122, -224, 10, 0, 0, 0
33) Riley Herbst #, 35, 9, -1, 101, -245, 21, 0, 0, 0
34) Shane Van Gisbergen #, 88, 9, 1, 98, -248, 3, 0, 0, 0
35) Cole Custer, 41, 9, 0, 85, -261, 13, 0, 0, 0
36) Cody Ware, 51, 9, 0, 45, -301, 40, 0, 0, 0
37) Jimmie Johnson, , 1, 0, 34, -312, 11, 0, 0, 0
38) Corey LaJoie*, 01, 3, 0, 24, -322, 10, 0, 0, 0
39) Katherine Legge, , 1, 0, 7, -339, 17, 0, 0, 0
40) Jj Yeley, , 3, 0, 4, -342, 3, 0, 0, 0
41) Casey Mears, , 1, 0, 2, -344, 2, 0, 0, 0
42) Burt Myers, , 1, 0, 1, -345, 1, 0, 0, 0
43) Martin Truex, Jr, , 1, 0, 1, -345, 0, 0, 0, 0
44) Justin Allgaier(i), , 1, 0, 0, -346, 1, 0, 0, 0
45) Bj Mcleod(i), , 1, 0, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
46) Austin Hill(i), , 1, 0, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
47) Jesse Love*(i), 33, 1, 47, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
48) Connor Zilisch(i), , 1, 1, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
49) Josh Bilicki*(i), 66, 1, 50, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
50) Anthony Alfredo(i), , 0, 2, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
51) Chandler Smith(i), , 0, 2, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
52) Helio Castroneves, , 1, 1, 0, -346, 0, 0, 0, 0
-Ldr/-Nxt = Points behind Leader/Next higher,
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series