Kyle Larson Dominates At The Monster Mile; Captures Third XFINITY Win Of The Season

DOVER, Del.– Kyle Larson led 137 of 200 laps on his way to Victory Lane in Saturday afternoon’s OneMain Financial 200 at Dover International Speedway.

Larson started on the pole in his Chip Ganassi Racing No. 42 Parker Store Chevrolet, and he captured the Stage 1 win over Ryan Blaney by just a nose after a side-by-side battle in the final laps of the opening stage. Larson went on to lead on three occasions en route to winning his third NASCAR XFINITY Series victory of the season and his first at the Monster Mile.

“I’ve had some good runs here at Dover, and I’ve had some bad ones too, so to get a win with Parker Store on the car – I’ve been close to winning every time they’ve been on our car or truck at Homestead,” Larson said in Victory Lane. “So it’s really, really cool to get Parker Store – they’ve been a part of my career really since I was like 9 or 10-years-old.”

Larson had the dominant car in the first half of the race before Blaney took the lead in his Team Penske No. 22 Fitzgerald Ford with 33 laps to go in Stage 2. Larson was suffering from handling issues. Blaney couldn’t hold onto the lead, and Darrell Wallace Jr. ended up capturing the win in Stage 2. Blaney led a total of 28 laps on Saturday. He finished second and captured his sixth top-10 of the season.

Daniel Suarez in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Subway Toyota showed early promise in Stage 3 after taking over the lead on the restart and driving away. Suarez led 19 laps overall in Saturday’s OneMain Financial 200, but Larson quickly caught up, allowing for door-to-door racing for the lead before taking the top spot from Suarez. The defending series champion had a competitive run, but Suarez had to settle for a third-place finish. He has now finished within the top-10 in four of the five starts that he has had at the Monster Mile.

Following the third-place finish, Suarez said, “I feel like we had a top-three car and we finished right there, so we just have to keep working to try to find a little more speed in these race cars and we’re going to win some races.”

Cole Custer was the highest-finishing rookie as he took home a fourth-place finish in the OneMain Financial 200. Ryan Reed completed the top-five. The rest of the top-10 included: William Byron, Elliott Sadler, Darrell Wallace Jr., Matt Tifft and Ty Dillon.

Byron won the Dash 4 Cash award in Saturday’s race at the Dover International Speedway.

Over the course of the 200-lap race, there were 10 cautions for a total of 45 laps.

Following the event, Elliott Sadler now leads the NASCAR XFINITY Series points standings by 12 points over his JR Motorsports teammate, Justin Allgaier.

The NASCAR XFINITY Series heads to Pocono Raceway for the Pocono Green 250 on Saturday, June 10. The television special edition event coverage will be hosted by current Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers, allowing fans to hear the race being called and reported on from a driver’s point of view. Coverage begins on FOX and the Motor Racing Network (MRN) at 1 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images

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