Both of NASCAR’s most consequential regular season points battles took a big swing with five laps left in Stage 2 of Monday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
Kyle Larson, who entered the race with the regular season points lead, was racing inside of the top 10 on one of the race’s many chaotic restarts when he got loose in the middle lane and spun.
Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Chevrolet backed into the outside wall in the direct path of Bubba Wallace, who clattered into the Californian and sustained significant front-end damage to his No. 23 23XI Toyota. At the same time, a stack-up behind Larson led to more crashes that included Chris Buescher, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Todd Gilliland.
The crash knocked Logano, Larson, Bell and Gilliland out of the race. Buescher, Wallace and Briscoe continued on, but saw the rest of their runs hampered by damage.
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“Restarts are difficult here, with the side-drafts and all that,” Larson said after being cleared at the infield care center. “I was just trying to get all I could, try to funnel to the top. I just moved up, got too close to whoever was outside of me and sucked myself around.
“Bummer. We had an extremely fast car. I hate that I screwed that up for our team, as well as the others that got collected in it.”
Monday’s crash was critical to both the regular season championship and playoff bubble. Larson had just a five-point advantage on Tyler Reddick for the points lead heading into the race, with Chase Elliott one point behind Reddick in third.
Reddick went on to win the race, taking five playoff points and surging into the championship lead by 10 points. Elliott narrowly avoided the crash but faded to 15th in the final overtime. He now sits in second, with Denny Hamlin 28 points behind Reddick in third after salvaging a ninth-place finish. Larson’s crash dropped him to fourth, 32 points back.
Wallace had entered Michigan with a three-point edge on Buescher and Ross Chastain at the playoff bubble, with Buescher holding the last provisional playoff spot on a tiebreaker. Despite suffering damage, Buescher went off-strategy and rallied forward in double overtime to salvage a sixth-place finish. Wallace limped home 26th with his damage, while Chastain was spun in the opening overtime and dropped to 25th.
“It was a good call to do something different, had at least right-side (tires) there. We were able to pass a ton of cars,” Buescher said afterward. “Wild, but a heck of a way to salvage a day that should have been better.”
The result is a 16-point edge for Buescher, with Chastain one point clear of the cutline and Wallace one point down and out of the provisional playoff field. Martin Truex Jr. (+77) and third-place finisher Ty Gibbs (+39) have a cushion and should be safe if they can avoid any issues over the next two weeks.
Two races remain for both championship fights. An unpredictable trip to Daytona International Speedway is up next, with the regular season wrapping up at the challenging Darlington Raceway.