NASCAR News: Larson wins Homestead Truck Race

Kyle Larson made a dramatic run to the checkered flag, rallying from a late-race spinout to methodically race back through the field and pass the night’s most dominant trucks in the final 10 laps to claim victory in Friday’s Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

It was a fittingly remarkable end to a typically competitive night in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. Larson spun his No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet with 45 laps remaining in the 134-lapper and dropped out of the top-20. But the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion drove back through the field and moved forward picking off one frontrunner after another.

Larson, who is entered in all three NASCAR national series races at the 1.5-mile South Florida track this weekend, passed Front Row Motorsports rookie Layne Riggs with two laps to go and never looked back, finishing 1.340-seconds ahead of the field.

The night’s most dominant driver, TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim finished third after leading a race best 78 laps.

“I wasn’t exactly sure if I could get back up there,” said Larson who has four wins in only 16 series starts – two in his last four races. “I didn’t have the restart I wanted, took a little bit too long to start picking them off and then just got ripping the wall and it paid dividends for me in [turns] one and two.”

Larson acknowledged that Heim – who has won two of the season’s opening three races – looked tough all race and was unquestionably the truck to beat. There was a problem with Heim’s motor in the closing laps – his truck suddenly started intermittently shutting off then restoring power in the closing 20 laps.

“Not sure what happened to the 11 [Heim], but that worked out in our favor for sure,” Larson said. “I don’t think I would have gotten to him [otherwise]. Obviously, I would have gotten to second, probably, but that would have been tough to get to him. That last run was a lot of fun.”

Heim was understandably disappointed standing on pit road after the race. His No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota started from pole position, swept both stage wins and led the most laps.

“I feel like we were lights out, the best truck tonight, think we should’ve won the race by six, seven seconds at the end there,” Heim said. “I feel like at the beginning of the runs, I knew what we were capable of and let those guys get away, burn their stuff up and then, fly past them.

“I don’t know exactly what was going on. Never really had an issue like that. I’d be totally fine, and the engine would just hard cut on me. Dash would go black and have no power until I fully cycled it. So, I was coasting for six seconds trying to turn the power switch and turn it back (on). I don’t know.

“Felt I ran a really good race, saving tires and would mow them down on the long runs there. This No. 11 Tundra TRD Pro was really, really good. This just stinks pretty bad.”

McAnally-Hilgemann Racing teammates Tyler Ankrum and Daniel Hemric rounded out the top-five finishers. Floridian Ross Chastain, who competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, led 33 laps in the No. 44 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet but finished sixth.

ThorSport Racing’s Jake Garcia was seventh, followed by Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith, CR7 Motorsports’ Grant Enfinger and Niece’s Kaden Honeycutt, who rallied to 10th-place showing from a late race penalty that dropped him to 27th in the field.

As for potentially claiming a weekend three-race sweep, Larson said, “I felt like the Truck race was probably going to be the toughest to win, I don’t have much experience in them and the runs are typically shorter. I feel better about Xfinity and Cup but the competition keeps getting tough and tougher as you get on with the weekend, but we’ll see. Off to a good start.”

With his third-place effort, Heim takes over the championship lead and holds eight points over reigning series champ Ty Majeski and 27 points over third place Chandler Smith.

Race Results

Average Speed of Race Winner:  117.068 mph.

Time of Race:  1 Hrs, 43 Mins, 1 Secs. Margin of Victory:  1.340 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  4 for 22 laps.

Lead Changes:  13 among 4 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   C. Heim 1-6;K. Larson(i) 7;C. Heim 8-11;K. Larson(i) 12-28;C. Heim 29-70;R. Chastain(i) 71-87;C. Heim 88-95;R. Chastain(i) 96-103;C. Heim 104-113;L. Riggs 114;R. Chastain(i) 115-122;C. Heim 123-130;L. Riggs 131-132;K. Larson(i) 133-134.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Corey Heim 6 times for 78 laps; Ross Chastain(i) 3 times for 33 laps; Kyle Larson(i) 3 times for 20 laps; Layne Riggs 2 times for 3 laps.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 11,07,34,98,44,18,19,52,45,38

Stage #2 Top Ten: 11,07,98,52,45,34,44,19,18,9