The Wise Power 400 had all the makings of a Cinderella story. Tyler Reddick, Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez were just three of a long list of surprise names spending time at the front.
Then, just before the clock struck midnight, Kyle Larson jumped in and ruined it.
The reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion got to the front when it mattered, leading 27 of the final 33 laps to win the first Auto Club Speedway race in nearly two years. But ACS was just as notable for the drivers who came close and missed. The premiere of NASCAR's Next Gen on an intermediate track gave everyone a fresh start, bringing teams into contention that have spent years languishing in mid-pack or worse.
Tyler Reddick, a first-time playoff driver last year who hasn't won yet in Cup, led the way for a race-high 90 laps -- some 17 more than his career total entering this weekend. Alongside him was Jones and the No. 43 of Petty GMS Racing. Jones led 18 laps Sunday, the most by a Richard Petty-owned 43 since Aric Almirola back in October 2012. He collected 18 stage points and 52 overall to tie Larson for most points on the day; his third-place finish was the best for the organization in two and a half years.
Then came Suarez, whose fourth-place result tied a team record for Trackhouse Racing. It was the Mexican talent who snuck by Larson on the race's final restart, briefly positioning himself to win before another pseudo-underdog, Austin Dillon, came up to challenge as well.
"You had some more players or some different players, I guess, than you would have had in the past [up front]," Larson said. "That part of it's neat to see."
It's a product of the Next Gen, the new cars that impressed this weekend in two ways. The most important was how they handled up front, dirty air not slowing them down as it was clear the leader couldn't build an impossible advantage.
"It was a fight for everybody out there," said second-place finisher Joey Logano. "The cars are equally matched and nobody had a real dominant car."
As drivers fought side-by-side with each other, they also struggled to keep control. A total of 12 cautions tied the track record as spins seemed to happen at a moment's notice. You couldn't look away. Unpredictability was a refreshing change for a track type so generic in recent years its nickname is "cookie cutter."
Of course, nothing's perfect, especially when it comes to new equipment. Tires were an issue, dooming the day's most dominant car (Reddick). Several flats left drivers peeved and, in some cases, kept them unable to bring the car around to the pits with no inner liner. Different grille openings also led to overheating for Kyle Busch and his teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing.
But following a phenomenal Daytona 500, it's hard to ask for more out of this transition.
"It's definitely edgy," Larson said of driving this Gen-7. "Honestly, I enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to."
So has everyone else.
Traffic Report
Green: Parity -- We're two races in and 10 different drivers have finished inside the top 5. Only one driver, Aric Almirola, has run top 10 or better in both races. On the flip side, last year's dominant organizations (Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports) have combined for just two top-10 results outside of Larson's win. Expect more of the same going forward as no team has an edge on figuring the Next Gen out.
"Really nothing carries over from last year," Larson's crew chief Cliff Daniels said Sunday. "Even kind of the concept of how a race would go."
Yellow: Richard Childress Racing -- Second place is the first winner as far as RCR is concerned. Austin Dillon shook off a tough 2021 season where he missed the playoffs. RCR-aligned cars in Jones and Suarez ran third and fourth. And yet… with Reddick's misfortune, ACS seemed like a missed opportunity for a team that's spent years playing second fiddle to Hendrick at Chevrolet.
Red: Harrison Burton -- So far this season, the rookie's been flipped on his lid at Daytona before smashing hard into Bubba Wallace's Toyota during a late-race wreck at Fontana. It's not a good look when your main rival for Rookie of the Year, Austin Cindric, already has a win and a pole.
Speeding Ticket: The Free Pass -- Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch and Josh Bilicki were multiple laps down at one point during the race. All wound up back in contention due to NASCAR's yellow flag rule that automatically gifts a lap back to the first driver not on the lead lap.
The rule was in response to a change years ago that kept lapped cars from racing for their lap back when a caution came out. But it also has the tendency to be abused, like Sunday, where it's akin to magically giving 21 points back to a NFL team down 28-7. Maybe a limit on these free passes (one per race) would be a better option?
Oops!
There's some work to be done in the Hendrick Motorsports team meeting this week after contact between Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott. The duo was busy fighting with Logano for the race lead when Elliott tried to make it three-wide down the straightaway. Problem was, Larson didn't know he was there, leading to contact that sent the No. 9 car into the wall and promptly cut down a tire.
NASCAR's Most Popular Driver vented his frustration on the radio (you might want to cover your ears for this one).
Just don't expect it to become a thing in a Hendrick culture where teamwork is a requirement, not a recommendation and where Elliott recently signed a five-year extension to stay with the team.
"I know they're upset," Larson said of the No. 9 team. "But we'll talk, and hopefully we'll get on the same page. I would never run into my teammate or block him that aggressively and that late on purpose."
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