BRISTOL, Tenn. – In honor of racing communications representative, Jon Edwards who passed away earlier in the week, Kyle Larson followed up his dominant performance on Saturday with another impressive win in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Edwards, who worked closely with Larson on the communications side of Hendrick Motorsports, unexpectedly passed away on Thursday. With the burning fire to win, Larson nearly swept the weekend. He finished runner-up in Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, dominated Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race and followed up with another dominate performance in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.

“This one is definitely for Jon,” Larson said. “He is just a great guy here, so we’re going to miss him, but successful weekend here. Wish he was going to be here with us to celebrate, but I know he’s celebrating with us in spirit.”

Larson led 411 of the 500 laps in the Food City 500, including the final 61 laps. After starting third, it only took Larson 40 laps to make it to the front of the field. Throughout the day, he was the driver to beat as he navigated through lapped traffic. Larson swept all three stages, The win marked his second of the 2025 season and his third at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“Yeah, just a flawless race once again here at Bristol for the 5 team,” Laron said. “Really, really good car. That was a lot of fun. You know, however many laps of green we ran, there was a lot of fun. I was pretty comfortable with things. Then Denny (Hamlin) came on really strong there before the pit cycle, and then, yeah, just kind of kept the pressure on from there.

“I knew I had to make some good moves in traffic. Felt like I did a pretty good job there in traffic. Split the middle sometimes when I needed to. So, yeah, just a lot of fun. A little bit out of breath. Just so high-paced here, and heart rate is up.”

Hamlin finished second in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Progressive Toyota. He was fast all afternoon long as well, despite not leading a lap. He finished Stage 1 in second and Stage 2 in fifth. Hamlin entered the weekend, going for three wins in-a-row in the NASCAR Cup Series.

“Yeah, we really did, but you’ve got to give that team their due and Kyle his due,” Hamlin said. “Just a dominant performance. You know, looked like pretty flawless day for him, so it looked pretty easy.

“It was all I had to try to keep up there. You know, glad we were able to give him a little bit of run with our Progressive Toyota, but this weekend we’re all thinking about John Edwards, his family, Al Pearce, Shigeaki Hattori. We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over this past week. So our thoughts are with them.”

Ty Gibbs finished third in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota. Gibbs methodically made his way through the field. He finished Stage 1 in ninth and Stage 2 in seventh. In the closing laps, Gibbs continued to move up through the field. The strong run marks his second consecutive top-10 finish of the season.

“We had a really good clean day, so you know, really happy to have that,” Gibbs said. “It’s been pretty chaotic start to our year. I think we’re back where we’re going to run.

“But really excited for the future and to get back racing after this off weekend. I think we’re really capable of winning a lot this year, so we’ll see what we can do and go out and have a fun time, have a blast.”

Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-five. Completing the top-10 was William Byron, Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell, AJ Allmendinger and Austin Dillon.

There were four lead changes among four drivers.

The caution only came out once for an accident. Contact between Shane Van Gisbergen and Cody Ware sent both drivers into the outside wall in Turn 2.

Byron leads Hamlin the standings by 30 points.

The NASCAR Cup Series will take Easter Weekend off but will return to the track on Sunday, April 27 for the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Live coverage will broadcast on FOX at 3 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Mitchell White/TheFourthTurn.com