Usually when Kyle Larson wins a race, nobody comes close to touching his speed.

This weekend’s race at Homestead-Miami was not the typical Larson victory. He only led 18 laps, struggled to find short run speed and endured pit road mayhem.

Instead it was Ryan Blaney who dominated much of the race early. After taking the lead away from pole-sitter Alex Bowman on lap nine, Blaney drove away from the field with haste.

After green flag stops had cycled, Blaney held an 11 second lead over Bowman when Christopher Bell went for a spin to bring out the first caution flag of the race. Despite the caution close to the end of the stage, Blaney held off challengers to claim the first stage of the race.

Blaney quickly returned to the lead after passing rookie Carson Hocevar, who stayed out on old tires, on the restart. The driver of the #12 continued his dominant day, quickly getting away from the field and building up Formula 1 level intervals against the rest of the field.

Lapped traffic caught up to Blaney by the end of stage two and the car that was made to lead struggled once he got there. Larson and Denny Hamlin ran him down and the duo passed him.

While not as much drama as their previous meetings, Larson and Hamlin fought tooth and nail for the lead in the closing laps of stage two.

Hamlin prevailed out of turn four and took the stage by a nose.

Larson got Hamlin back on pit road, winning the race off to restart first. He struggled with short run speed however and quickly Bubba Wallace found himself side by side with the #5.

Wallace’s short run speed was unmatched and he quickly completed the pass. However, Wallace couldn’t escape the field like Blaney in the first two stages, so Larson slowly reeled the #23 back into his grasp.

As the two battled, Blaney surged back into the fold, applying pressure on Larson who was struggling to get by Wallace. With the laps winding down, Blaney went back to the gas to go full throttle when smoke plumed out from the back of his car.

Blaney’s day was done, marking his third DNF and second blown engine in three weeks.

That set up the final restart of the race, where Wallace got a bad jump, but battled back to reclaim the lead. Bowman, Hamlin, Larson and Chase Briscoe all jockeyed for second place behind him. Their intense four-way battle ended with Bowman in second, slowly reeling in Wallace with Briscoe behind him.

The 43 lap sprint to the end was the longest the cars had run on track which played into Larson’s strength of long run speed. Half way through the final stint, Larson’s car came alive, running lap times almost half-a-second faster than the lead three.

Larson made quick work of Briscoe as Bowman found his way around Wallace. Wallace was no match for Larson’s slide job in turn three and with the Toyotas out of the picture, it was down to two Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets.

Bowman held the advantage earlier, building a second-long lead before Larson passed Wallace. With 10 laps to go, Larson was on pace to meet Bowman at the very end of the race.

However, as both drivers dug deep, reaching for everything that they had, Bowman found himself in a hole as he found himself in the fence with six laps to go. Larson had contact with the wall as well, but his car did not get stuck in the fence like Bowman.

Instead of an intense last lap battle, Larson easily drove by Bowman and headed off into the Miami sunset for his first win of the year.

Larson came a restart in the Xfinity Series away from sweeping the weekend at Homestead, after winning the Truck race Friday.

The race marked the best finish and first top five for Wallace of the season, as he took home a third place finish.

The Cup Series is going short track racing next, the green flag drops at Martinsville 12:00 p.m. PST.

Takeaways:

Jack: That’s a race Bowman and Blaney will be thinking about for some time. They both might have had the best car of the race at different points and Bowman was just six laps away from beating his teammate.

Nevertheless, it’s an impressive victory for Larson who seems to find ways to lose instead of ways to win in situations like this. Homestead will always be a favorite of Larson’s, but his tire management today was top notch and earned him this win.

Wallace, who earned his best Homestead finish today, was equally impressive. He was smooth in the lead and battled through some Noah Gragson-related adversity to claim his best finish of the year. Shoutout to the 23XI pit crew as well who helped keep Wallace out front all day.

Cam: My bias is well known now and at first I was pretty gutted after that race, but a great finish for the 23 who’s now up to 7th in points. Great work by the entire crew.

Larson simply dominated all weekend despite missing out on the xfinity series win. It’s hard to believe he only won twice at Homestead prior to this. I think the parity this season will be amazing to watch as we inch closer to the playoffs.

Bowman continues to let chances slip in his time at Hendrick. If these performances continue I would probably be willing to bet Mr. H will look at some of Chevy’s young guns. Trackhouse has Zilisch for now, but we all know that could change if Mr. H wants to make a change.