Elk Grove’s Kyle Larson Wins NASCAR Cup Series Championship At Phoenix Raceway

(CBS13/CNN) — Kyle Larson has won the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship, claiming the trophy aft 312 laps of the Phoenix Raceway successful Avondale, Arizona, connected Sunday.

Larson, 29, from Elk Grove,  is the lone Asian American to contention full-time successful NASCAR, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. He made the playoffs 2016-2019 portion driving for Chip Ganassi Racing but sat retired past year’s event after NASCAR suspended him for making a radical slur.

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Hendrick Motorsports added Larson to its squad erstwhile helium was reinstated and helium had his archetypal triumph for the squad successful March astatine Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Four drivers were competing for the title among a tract of 39 astatine the one-mile oval track.

Championship. Sunday. 3 PM ET. pic.twitter.com/PM6rtUSV8g

— Kyle Larson (@KyleLarsonRacin) November 7, 2021

Larson crossed the enactment up of teammate Chase Elliott, who won the Cup Series Championship successful 2020 and whose father, Bill Elliott, is simply a NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee. Elliott drives a No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, the aforesaid car fig arsenic his father.

Hendrick Motorsports was up against Joe Gibbs Racing successful the final, with Denny Hamlin — the longest-tenured operator astatine Joe Gibbs Racing — driving the team’s No. 11 Toyota.

Martin Truex Jr. drove the No. 19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing and past won the Cup Series successful 2017. He was 2nd implicit the decorativeness enactment Sunday, down Larson.

Competing for the champion finish

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The NASCAR Cup Series is the banal car racing organization’s premier competition. After a 26-race regular season, the 16 drivers with the astir points vie successful a 10-race elimination playoff.

The last 4 drivers — the Championship 4 — vie for the champion decorativeness successful the title race, with the victor taking the Bill France Cup, named for NASCAR’s founder.

NASCAR — The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing — was established successful 1947.

Stock cars are large, late-model sedans that person been built particularly for racing. The banal car’s ample motor allows it to scope speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour.

NASCAR runs 3 nationalist series: the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for modified pickup trucks.

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