Is Larson the King of Las Vegas?

The first intermediate track of the year is in the books! In sharp contrast to the massive crashes we saw in the last two races, this race was practically crash-free! Solo spinouts excluded, Sunday’s race showed us the true colors of who the contenders might be for this season. I don’t want to make any calls too early; It’s only been one solid race. However, being wreck-free has its advantages in showing teams and drivers where they need to adjust, and what areas they need to focus on during the upcoming races. Additionally, it gives the fans and us journalists the opportunity to see our favorite drivers adjust their strategies and find their groove in a fresh environment. 

Before we jump into my race notes, let’s learn about LVMS and its place in NASCAR Cup series history. Opening as the Las Vegas International Speedrome in 1972, this track has seen 5 different names and 8 different track configurations over its 52 years of operation. Though it was originally opened as a dirt oval track, it evolved in length and configuration until it eventually became a trioval in 1996 and was renamed as the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Built along Interstate 15 on a 1,100 acre plot of land, LVMS was able to hold 140,000 people when it hosted its first NASCAR race in November of 1996. First the track hosted a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, with a NASCAR Busch Series race the following year. In late 1997, LVMS won the rights to host a NASCAR Winston Cup Series race – the Las Vegas 400 – for 1998. After that race, Bruton Smith announced plans to buy out the complex for $215 million. Smith started to renovate amenities, and appointed Chris Powell – a former media relations manager for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series – as the track’s general manager. In 2000, the track modified the length to 1.5 miles and renamed it the “Bullring”. 

In 2006, Powell announced a $27 million renovation project to overhaul the existing track. Major changes included changing the banking in the turns from 12 to 20 degrees, increasing capacity to 141,000, and narrowing the racing surface from 70 feet to 50 feet. Additionally, the track built numerous new structures infield. One of the highlights is an interactive garage known as the Neon Garage that spectators can access for an extra fee during race weekends. Other structures included a three-story, 60,000 square-foot media center called the LocaliQ Digital Center, and a 127-unit condominium tower. However, as the tower was being constructed, Nellis Air Force Base and United States Air Force officials, who did regular flight training and drills near the track, lobbied the Clark County government to refuse the tower citing safety issues. In 2015, the track announced the removal of 15,000 seats in the track’s third and fourth turns to make way for RV parking. In 2017, the track decreased capacity to 80,000 seats to make way for increased premium seating options, and in 2019 the track announced another planned seating decrease after the track recorded its lowest attendance at the 2018 South Point 400. The pandemic canceled these plans, but it is likely the track will cut more seats in the future due to an attendance drop in 2023. 

While LVMS has only been hosting Cup races for 25 years, it’s seen a fair share of notable NASCAR moments. In 2006, Jimmie Johnson for his second consecutive LVMS victory, beat Matt Kenseth by 0.045 seconds – one of the closest NASCAR Cup Series finishes. While not as exciting as last week’s finish in Atlanta, this finish was still a dramatic moment in the sport. In 2009, Las Vegas native Kyle Busch got his first NASCAR Cup Series win at his hometown track. Speaking of Kyle Busch, in 2017 Busch confronted Joey Logano on pit road after they made contact on track. The confrontation led to a bloodied fist fight. In 2014, Brad Keselowski stole first place from Dale Earnhardt Jr. as Jr. ran out of fuel on the final lap – barely making it to the finish line for second place. Keselowski also took the checkered flag at the track in 2018  – the first year in history that Las Vegas served as the NASCAR Playoffs opener for the NASCAR Cup Series. We’ll get into a few more notable events at the end of my race notes.

This race featured a 2025 Toyota Camry XSE pace car, and the 3 stages were set as 80, 85, and 102 laps for 400.5 miles across a total of 267 laps. William Byron started in 4th, Reddick in 18th, and Preece in 36th due to heavy penalties dished out to Stewart Haas by NASCAR for roof rail modifications last week. Preece was also racing in his backup car after spinning out in practice and damaging his primary car. Though I’m not following him, nor am I much of a fan to be honest, it’s worth noting that Joey Lagano qualified in first for the 3rd week in a row. 

Sand clouds kicked up off the track as the first few laps got underway, and thankfully, for the first time this season, drivers completed 10 laps without any significant wrecks. Remarkably, there were no major crashes throughout the entire race. Even still, there was plenty of excitement as drivers aggressively blocked one another, and tried to find the optimal racing line. LVMS is an intermediate track, and the racing style is much different than it’s been the past couple weeks at superspeedways. Although a handful of teammates chose to intermittently draft at different points during the race, the majority of drivers opted to run solo throughout the entirety of the race. Large packs only occasionally formed, primarily during restarts. By lap 9, there were 5 Toyotas in the top 12 cars; an impressive statistic considering there are only 8 Toyotas in the Cup series this year. It was apparent pretty early in the race that the Toyotas had superior handling and would excel in this race. I expect we’ll see Toyotas on the forefront of most of the intermediate tracks this year.

The first caution came out on lap 11 as Christopher Bell shredded his right rear tire. Drivers had to be careful not to be too aggressive on the track as the rear tires were the most likely to give out first. Each team only had nine sets of tires for the weekend – and one of those sets had already been used by each team for qualifying. After the restart, Larson and Byron took a strong lead for Hendrick Motorsports. I know I chose Byron in the pre-season to follow this year for Chevy, but I think Larson’s going to have a great year too. I expect both him and Byron will make the playoffs this year. We saw the second caution of the day on lap 27, as Chris Buescher of RFK Racing lost a wheel due to the center-lock not being fully secured on his last pit stop. Surprisingly, this was the first of a few different wheel/center-lock related issues that various teams would face before the checkered flag flew. This incident sent Buescher into the wall hard enough that his car was out of the race, and a metal patch had to be welded onto the portion of the wall that he hit. Thankfully he was uninjured, and the only vehicle involved.

Though Fox has done a good job over the past few years covering NASCAR, this year I’m noticing that advertising is much more of a priority to them than conveying the information about the sport. I commented on this in last week’s article as there was a significant accident during their side-by-side commercial break. In that case, they chose to continue running another 2.5 minutes of ads before coming back and barely commenting on the accident. This week, a red flag was thrown after Buescher’s incident so a track crew could repair the wall. Fox started a full commercial break when the caution came out, came back and said “the red flag is out”, and then immediately launched into another full commercial break without explaining why the red was out. This led to much confusion for many fans, as well as frantic searches across social media to determine why there was a red flag all of the sudden. I won’t let this article devolve into me whining about TV networks, but I wanted to mention it since the networks are the primary way many fans access the races.

Byron unfortunately went a lap down when he had to pit on lap 33 for a trash bag getting stuck on his front grill. The rest of the stage ran without incident and saw a total of 9 different race leaders. Larson finished Stage 1 in first, and Reddick in second. Due to a poor pitstop by the 45 team, Reddick started Stage 2 in 16th. As I mentioned earlier, the Toyotas did well with five Toyotas in the top 10 at the end of Stage 1. The next best manufacturer at the end of Stage 1 was Chevy with four vehicles in the top 10. The Fords seemed to struggle the entire race. In Eric Estepp’s race recap, he mentioned how “Ford still has work to do getting the balance right”. Though I predicted pre-season that Ford would dominate the season, it’s looking like they still need to work a few things out before they hit their stride. I’m still optimistic that they’ll figure it out and become a major player in the midseason.

Stage 2 went off without a hitch as there was only a singular caution when Christopher Bell spun out. He didn’t sustain any damage. If you’ll recall, the first caution of this race came out due to him shredding a tire. Though he triggered two different cautions over the course of this race, I was impressed with how well he did at working his way back up the field. The same goes for Tyler Reddick as he finished Stage 2 in second place after starting it in 16th. Larson took the Stage 2 win with Byron up to 14th to claim the free pass. Preece finished Stage 2 in 21st. 

Though I’m not much of a Bubba fan, I’ve got to give him a shout-out. He faced a center-lock problem that put him 13 laps down, but he ended up going back on track to bump-draft Reddick into position to catch up to Larson. Stage 3 was the longest, and saw a couple rounds of pits. A caution came out on lap 234 as Lajoie’s right rear tire went out causing him to spin. The final 20 laps of the race were entertaining as Larson and Reddick played cat & mouse. Larson won, adding to his track dominance at LVMS. 

Larson has been in the spotlight at the track for one reason or another for the past 3 years. In 2021, he scored his first win with Hendrick Motorsports at LVMS. In 2022, During the Cup Series Round of 8 playoff race, he and Bubba Wallace made contact and wrecked coming off Turn 4. Wallace confronted and attacked Larson after exiting his car on the track. In 2023, Larson held off a fierce charge from Christopher Bell in the closing laps, scoring the victory by just 0.082 seconds. The win propelled Larson into the Championship 4 for the second time in three years. And of course this year he fended off Tyler Reddick to sweep the victory in all 3 stages. 

Speaking of sweeps, so far Chevy has swept all three wins this season. Let’s see if we can switch that up next week! I’ll be following NASCAR with weekly articles all season long, so stay tuned! I’ll also be releasing weekly articles on other vehicles and topics. Make sure to visit my profile to catch what you’ve missed! To see my latest photography work, go to StingerAuto.com or look up @Stinger_Auto on Instagram and Stinger Photography on Facebook!