In an overtime finish that will now be replayed for years to come, Kyle Larson charged to the outside of Chris Buescher in Turns 3 and 4 and beat him to the finish line in a photo finish to win the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway. Larson's margin of victory over Buescher was 0.001, the closest finish in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series and the second-closest finish in the history of all of NASCAR's national touring series.
The finish was so close that Buescher was initially shown as the winner by electronic timing and scoring, but further review showed Larson barely beat Buescher to the finish line. Larson was then announced as the winner, giving him his second victory of the 2024 season.
AdventHealth 400 unofficial results
- #5 - Kyle Larson
- #17 - Chris Buescher
- #9 - Chase Elliott
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #11 - Denny Hamlin
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #48 - Alex Bowman
- #8 - Kyle Busch
- #10 - Noah Gragson
- #34 - Michael McDowell
The race to the finish initially looked like it would be settled by fuel mileage, as Denny Hamlin, Buescher and Larson were among the cars saving fuel while Martin Truex Jr. was good to the end on fuel and running down Hamlin in the lead. But a spin by Kyle Busch with seven laps to go took that element completely out of the equation, as everyone came to pit road to top off on fuel and also take tires, with the top nine cars all taking two tires while Truex took four.
An excellent launch at the green flag gave Buescher the lead, and he was then forced to play defense as Larson began to fill up his rearview mirror. Entering Turn 3 on the final lap, Larson made his move and threaded the needle between Buescher and the outside wall, leaving the two to trade paint to the finish line -- with Truex and Chase Elliott closing in quickly behind them -- before crossing the line in a virtual dead heat.
While Buescher was initially shown as the winner by timing and scoring, NASCAR's high speed cameras situated at the start/finish line showed Larson just ahead of Buescher, giving him the victory.
"I got through [Turns] 1 and 2 really good, down the backstretch I had a big tow on Chris and got him to kind of enter shallow. And I just committed really hard up top and wasn't quite sure if we were gonna make it out the other side -- I got super loose in the center," Larson told Fox Sports. "And then I'm trying not to get too far ahead of him to where he can side draft, and then I was just trying to kill his run. It was crazy."
On the other side of Larson's elation -- he raved about the racing throughout the day in Kansas, calling it "amazing" from start to finish -- Buescher experienced understandable dejection to have lost so narrowly and in such historic fashion. With Buescher finishing second, a Ford has still yet to win a NASCAR national series race in 2024, and it has now been denied its first win by a historically close photo finish three different times: Ryan Blaney was second to Daniel Suarez at Atlanta by 0.003, while Ryan Sieg fell to Sam Mayer in the Xfinity Series race at Texas by a margin of 0.002.
"That sucks to be that close ... I tried to cover what I could and gave him half a lane too much, I suppose," Buescher told Fox Sports. "A good, hard race right there down to the line. But that hurts."
The 0.001 finish between Larson and Buescher instantly becomes the closest in NASCAR Cup Series history, surpassing Ricky Craven's 0.002 win over Kurt Busch at Darlington in the spring of 2003 (A mark later tied by Jimmie Johnson over Clint Bowyer at Talladega in 2011). Of the five closest finishes in any Cup race ever, two have now taken place during the 2024 season after Daniel Suarez's three-wide photo finish win (0.003) over Blaney and Kyle Busch at Atlanta. Dale Earnhardt's win over Ernie Irvan at Talladega in July 1993 and Jamie McMurray's win over Kyle Busch at Daytona in July 2007 (both 0.005) now move into a tie for fifth-closest ever.
The only finish ever closer than Larson's win over Buescher came in an Xfinity Series race at Daytona in February 2018, when Tyler Reddick beat Elliott Sadler by 0.0004 in a finish that went down to the next decimal point.
At what has become one of NASCAR's pre-eminent action tracks since the introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022, Kansas Speedway delivered not just what is now an all-time classic finish, but also intense racing for the lead across the track's multiple grooves from the start of the race all the way to the end. Before the photo finish, the top highlight of the day looked like it was going to belong solely to Buescher, who split a small gap between Ross Chastain and Christopher Bell on a restart to go five-wide in a race for the lead that also included Larson, Truex and Ty Gibbs.
While a rash of cautions at the start of the final stage allowed some of the central figures in the race to gain track position -- namely Hamlin and Buescher, who pitted seven laps before Larson and the other leaders, recovering from pit road issues in the process -- the ability for cars to pass was never in question the way it was in the week after air blocking by Hamlin prevented Larson from making a move for the win last week at Dover.
Larson -- whose 25th career victory now ties him with NASCAR Hall of Famer Joe Weatherly and Jim Paschal on the sport's all-time wins list -- made reference to that discourse while speaking excitedly about the way Cup cars now race on 1.5-mile tracks.
"Just incredible. ... I wish we had more mile and a halves," Larson said. "We all bitch about the [aero] package and all that, but these cars just race so amazing."
Interestingly, Sunday night's finish comes only a day after much of the sports world as a whole was enthralled by the finish to the Kentucky Derby, where Mystik Dan prevailed in a three-wide photo finish over Sierra Leone and Forever Young. And according to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, the photo finish camera technology NASCAR uses to digitally determine the finish line is the same technology used at Churchill Downs on Saturday.
The process of calling Larson the winner somewhat softened the blow for Buescher's team, as crew chief Scott Graves told Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports said he accepted NASCAR's explanation of ruling Larson the winner upon a visit to the officials' hauler -- an explanation that was somewhat necessary, as there was some contention in the immediate aftermath of the finish that the painted start/finish line was not perfectly vertical.
"They showed us the picture they create using the lasers. We were just wondering if they were using the painted line or not -- they don't. It's actually they have a photo system that is a lot more accurate than that," Graves said. "They showed us the picture of it, and it is what it is.
"It doesn't make it any easier to swallow, but as much as all these races are, obviously you've got to at least question it and make sure you're understanding of everything that's going on there and be able to accept that decision. So that's what we did."
Race results rundown
- After a month of misery and a feast-or-famine 2024 season overall, something good finally happened for Christopher Bell again. After starting from the pole, Bell would lead five laps and finish sixth, breaking a streak that saw him spin or crash in four-straight races with only one finish better than 34th in that span.
- Noah Gragson continued his recent hot streak by finishing ninth, earning his third-straight top-10 finish (including a top five at Talladega) and his fifth overall in 2024. For comparison's sake, not only did Gragson not have a single top-10 finish in all of 2023, but the previous driver of Stewart-Haas Racing's No. 10 Ford -- Aric Almirola -- had just five top-10 finishes in all 36 races a year ago.
- The most improbable recovery of the day belonged to Michael McDowell, who was collected in a mid-race crash when the spinning car of Austin Cindric drilled him in the right side. Despite suffering extensive right side damage, McDowell's team was able to gain him track position on strategy, and McDowell was able to hang onto it at the end for a 10th-place finish. That gets McDowell off the schnide, as he had endured three-straight DNFs, including a crash while racing for the win at Talladega.
- Another driver who enjoyed a nice bounceback was John Hunter Nemechek, who came home 13th to earn his first top-15 finish since a career-best sixth-place run at Bristol. He was almost joined by teammate Corey Heim, who lined up ninth for the final restart, but Heim would get spun coming off the final corner and finished 22nd in his second start as a substitute driver for Erik Jones. Jones, who suffered a broken back on April 21 at Talladega, has been cleared to return to racing and will take over the driver's seat of the No. 43 at Darlington next week.
- One driver curiously absent from the race for the win was Ross Chastain, who was an early factor but progressively fell off as the race progressed. Chastain took an early lead led four different times for 43 laps, but he would sink all the way back to 19th by race's end.
- Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson saw his race come to an end on Lap 176, when he checked up for something happening in front of him entering Turn 1 and got run into from behind by Corey LaJoie, sending him into the wall and relegating him to a 38th-place finish. Johnson was briefly unhappy with LaJoie afterwards, glaring at the No. 7 Chevrolet as he drove by before boarding an ambulance for a trip to the infield care center.
Next race
After all that, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to the site of what is now its second-closest finish ever, Darlington Raceway, for throwback weekend and the Goodyear 400 next Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.