Kyle Larson wins NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway

RICHMOND, Va. — Kyle Larson showed the strength of his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet over the closing miles and won Sunday’s 400-lap NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway.

The win was the first of the season for the former Cup champion, and it came in a race that saw a variety of tire strategies.

Larson rallied from a Lap-160 incident on pit road, where he bumped Daniel Suarez and sustained minor damage to his Chevrolet.

“Typically, when you leave from a green flag stop, it feels different because there’s rubber on the track and all that,” Larson said. “So I took off … and I was, like, OK, my car is driving different than it did to start this run. I didn’t think that I hit Suarez that hard. It didn’t feel that hard from my seat. So I am, like, OK, it’s whatever. I was, like, man, I’m not good.

“I was really tight loading into the corner. Snapped loose off. Lapped cars were driving by me. I was just, like, man, is this the track change or — and then they told me the damage. And, yeah, there was just nothing I could do to manage what I was fighting. …  I was really, really bad, really lacking traction that run. I was just shocked that the damage did that much to me. But thankfully it was in an area where they could pop it back out, and our car drove fine after that.”

The win was more emotional than most for the Hendrick team. It came on the anniversary of the birthday of Ricky Hendrick, son of team owner Rick Hendrick. Ricky died in a 2004 plane crash that killed several members of the team. Larson’s No. 5 car carried a paint scheme similar to the one used by Ricky Hendrick when he raced.

The victory was a grand conclusion to a positive week for Hendrick Motorsports, which regained points it had been penalized by