Kyle Larson was denied a chance to win back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series races on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway after driving into the pit entry sand barrels to begin final green flag pit stops with 54 laps to go.
It appears that Larson simply misjudged where Blaney would slow and given the choice to run into the back of the leader or to turn right, Larson veered into the barrels.
Larson had already locked himself into the championship race with a victory last weekend at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, so there are no consequences to the incident beyond lost momentum. Larson had led the most laps (96) to that point and looked like the car to beat, even trailing Blaney by that point of the race.
Ultimately, crew chief Cliff Daniels discovered a broken tire rod, which ended their race.
“I was just maximizing all I could,” Larson said. “I didn’t expect him to slow down so early. I was trying to get to the yellow (commitment) line as quickly as I could, and from my viewpoint, he just slowed down a lot.
“But from the replay, it looks like I just bombed it down in there. I need to go back and look at the data and see what my speed was relative to the line and all that.”
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Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.