Kyle Larson can't hold off Kurt Busch down stretch, takes second place

Kyle Larson had a slide job gone wrong, a save for the ages, a late-race pass for the lead — and ultimately, a second-place showing Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

With nine laps remaining in the AdventHealth 400, Larson‘s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was passed by the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota of Kurt Busch, who beat Larson to the checkered flag by 1.413 seconds. The final results marked Busch‘s first victory of 2022 and Larson‘s sixth top-five finish. Larson, the reigning champion, last won on Feb. 27 at Auto Club Speedway.

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“We were racing for the win there,” Larson said. “Yeah, he never got into me, so I’m trying to squeeze throttle to get position on him and just got tight, so that was fun racing with Kurt the last half of the race.

“I was trying hard the whole time. I about spun out in front of him there at some point I think in the third stage, and then we just kept fighting through it.”

In the Final Stage, which spanned from Lap 165 to 267, Busch led three different times for 73 laps. Larson led twice for 26 laps. Busch‘s younger brother, Kyle, had a three-lap stint out front to complete the 102-lap stretch. Kyle, driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, finished third, 1.991 seconds behind Kurt.

There were six Toyotas in the top 10. That‘s all of them.

“The Toyotas are obviously extremely good today,” Larson said. “I think they’re all in the top 10, it looks like. So they had the handling as well as a lot of speed, just raw speed.