Kyle Larson Wins at Michigan

Originally written for CLNS Media.

Kyle Larson won the FireKeepers Casino 400 from Michigan International Speedway on Sunday afternoon for his second-consecutive victory at the track.

Larson started on the pole, and led 96 of the 200 laps on Sunday.  Larson had to beat Kyle Busch on a late restart to take the lead, and then had to hold off other top drivers to get to victory lane. 

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Larson got a push from Ryan Blaney to take the lead, and he said he was able to use that to get to victory lane.

“Ryan Blaney gave me a heck of a push, so I really got to thank him a ton,” Larson said.  “To withstand a few restarts over some tough competitors was really important.  I knew the Penske cars took off good, so I was happy to see [Blaney] behind me.”

Larson picked up his second victory of the year on Sunday, but he said he and his team still need to work on closing out races.

“We’ve been so close to so many other wins…we’ve had six second-place finishes,” Larson said.  “Could have 30 more bonus points, but good season all-in-all.  We’ll continue to keep building on what we’ve got.”

Chase Elliott finished second on Sunday, and he came close to becoming the fourth driver to pick up their first career victory in 2017.  Elliott said he was happy with his third-career runner-up finish at Michigan after a rough start to the weekend.

“From where we started the day to where we ended up, I’m just really proud of our efforts,” Elliott said.  “I really think we overachieved today with what we had Friday and Saturday.”

“We put ourselves in position to rely on some late-race restarts…had a couple opportunities to get the lead and unfortunately it just didn’t work out.”

Unofficial results:

1. Kyle Larson

2. Chase Elliott

3. Joey Logano

4. Denny Hamlin

5. Jamie McMurray

6. Martin Truex Jr.

7. Kyle Busch

8. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

9. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

10. Jimmie Johnson

11. Matt Kenseth

12. Kurt Busch

13. Erik Jones

14. Kevin Harvick

15. Ryan Newman

16. Brad Keselowski

17. Trevor Bayne

18. AJ Allmendinger

19. Darrell Wallace Jr.

20. Ty Dillon

21. Kasey Kahne

22. Paul Menard

23. Michael McDowell

24. Daniel Suarez

25. Ryan Blaney

26. Clint Bowyer

27. Austin Dillon

28. Matt DiBenedetto

29. David Ragan

30. Corey LaJoie

31. Cole Whitt

32. Landon Cassill

33. Ryan Sieg

34. Reed Sorenson

35. Jeffrey Earnhardt

36. Chris Buescher

37. Danica Patrick

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