Larson Dominates Homestead Xfinity Race, Weekend Sweep Dashed by Late Caution

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

Kyle Larson was the dominant force in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway and it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that he would be the driver in Victory Lane for the second day in a row.

But as the old saying goes, it’s not over until it’s over.

Leading by a little more than 16 seconds with eight laps to go in the Hard Rock Bet 300, Larson had led 132 laps on the day, far and away the most of any driver in the field, when the caution flag flew for a spin by Taylor Gray on the frontstretch, sending the race into overtime to settle it.

Larson, who was trying to win the second leg of his attempt at the weekend sweep, lined up on the inside lane with Xfinity regulars Austin Hill to his outside and Sam Mayer behind him in the second row.

When the green flag dropped, Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet got squirrelly when Mayer gave him a shove, allowing Hill and Justin Allgaier to sneak out ahead of them heading into Turn 1.

Larson would fall back to third and eventually finish the race in fourth place, never able to regain the momentum he had lost on the restart.

Just like that, his bid to sweep the weekend was over despite dominating all day long.

.@J_Allgaier comes through in the clutch!!!

Homestead-Miami win
Dash 4 Cash win

Watch the entire overtime and the thrilling finish! pic.twitter.com/W90VeWzk83

— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) March 22, 2025

“I’ve lived through it a number of times here,” Larson said of the disappointment. “Obviously, a bummer again to have another Homestead race play out that way.

“I can’t go when my rear tires are off the ground. I know it looks like I choked another one away, but I did everything I thought I could. The 41 just lagged back and slammed the shit out of me and my tires were off the ground.

“Bummer, but cool to have as big of a lead as we had. I would have loved to get a win for everybody on this 17 car. You know, they don’t get to race all the time, so it’s good when we can run up front like we did today. Got one more opportunity in this thing later on here in a few weeks, so we’ll see if we can go and get it done then.”

For his part of it, Mayer explained that it was a simple timing mistake that caused he and Larson to get together on the restart.

“I just mistimed it unfortunately,” Mayer said. “Got to his bumper a little too early. He went really, really late in the box just playing games, but that’s what you have to do at this level to get the advantage. He just waited really long, and I wasn’t ready for him to wait that long. I was giddy to get going.”