Practice #1 : Homestead Miami Speedway

• Thursday, March 20th, 2025
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

Sunny South Florida is ready for the NASCAR Cup Series

The NASCAR Cup Series returns east to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the Straight Talk Wireless 400 – the weekend’s NASCAR tripleheader marking the first time since 2021 the series has competed on the South Florida track in the spring.

It remains to be seen if the 1.5-miler – popular among competitors – will race differently this weekend in the warm March Florida sun versus how it races in the Fall when the series typically visited more recently.

Regardless of the timing, a good weekend has proven to be a good weekend at Homestead. Six of the last seven race winners have led the most laps. That comes in sharp contrast to the current early season. Only once in the five 2025 races has the winner led the most laps – Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell’s victory at Phoenix.

Hendrick Motorsports is certainly hoping its track record continues to prove successful at Homestead. The team has led 54 percent of all laps in the Next Gen Era there and Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 HMS Chevrolet, has led the most laps (626) of any active driver.

His work on the 1.5-milers is especially impressive. Larson’s 12 stage wins in the Next Gen car is a series-best. No other driver has more than five stage wins.

Larson’s 1,286 total miles led on the 1.5-mile tracks is almost double that of any other driver. Bell is second on the list with 614 laps out front.

Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Daytona 500 winner William Byron not only holds the championship points lead – by 29 points over the season’s three-time winner Bell – but is the only driver to run out front in every race this season. He has led laps in the last seven races – the longest consecutive streak for a driver in the series since 2019.

This weekend Larson will have plenty of time on track even before Sunday’s green flag. He will be doing rare triple-duty work – competing in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series on Friday (in the No. 07 Spire Chevrolet), the Xfinity Series on Saturday (No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) in addition to Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.

He is attempting to become only the second driver to earn a weekend three-peat. Kyle Busch won in all three national series at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway twice in 2010 and 2017.

“I always feel good going to Homestead,” said Larson, who won at Homestead in 2022. “It’s probably the track that suits me the best, you know, being comfortable running against the wall and stuff like that. So, yeah, the last two finishes (34th and 13th) we’ve had there don’t reflect how we’ve ran. We’ve been the best every time we go there.

“We were stupid fast there the second- half of the fall race last time we were there with a bunch of damage underneath the car that you can’t see. So that was a satisfying run to almost have a shot to win there. But hopefully this year it goes smooth; we have a good handling race car, which I know we will, and we can just hammer away at the wall and be fast.”

A victory Sunday for 2025’s three-trophy winner Bell would be his fourth in the opening six races – a high-achieving season start accomplished only twice previously: by NASCAR Hall of Famers Bill Elliott (1992) and Dale Earnhardt (1987).

23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick is the defending race winner, claiming the victory from pole position last October; the second driver (also his team co-owner Hamlin) to win from pole in the last five Homestead races.

Interestingly, there hasn’t been a back-to-back race winner at Homestead in the last 19 years when Greg Biffle won three straight from 2004-06.

Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain claims Homestead as his “home track.” It’s about two hours south of his Alva, Fla. hometown. The popular driver is coming off his first top-five (fifth place) of the season at Las Vegas last week.

“The weather in South Florida is beautiful and it’s fun to have so many friends and family at the track,” said Chastain, who plans to drive to Homestead after visiting home. “I think Homestead provides some great racing and the ability to run up by the wall. I was there last week for an event at the track and got to meet different people from the community. I enjoy it anytime I get the chance to go to South Florida.”

• Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Straight Talk Wireless 400
• Busch Light Award Pole Winner: Alex Bowman
• Age: 31
• Team : No 48 - Ally Unrivaled League Chevrolet
• Owner: Rick Hendrick
• Crew Chief: Blake Harris
• Alex Bowman won the Busch Light Pole Award for the Straight Talk Wireless 400 with a lap of 31982 seconds, 168845 mph
• This is his sixth pole in 331 NASCAR Cup Series races
• This is his first pole and second top-10 start in 2025
• This is his first pole in ten races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Josh Berry (second) posted his fourth top-10 start of 2025 and his first in two races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Noah Gragson (third) posted his first top-10 start at Homestead-Miami Speedway It is his second in six races this season
• Riley Herbst (19th) was the fastest qualifying rookie
• This is Hendrick Motorsports' fifth pole at Homestead-Miami Speedway

• Sunday, March 23rd, 2025
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

Kyle Larson gets first Cup win of the season at Homestead-Miami

Kyle Larson, proved himself the weekend’s most dominant driver at Homestead-Miami Speedway winning two of the three national series races, capping off the extraordinary three-day performance with a victory in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 NASCAR Cup Series race.

Larson was able to seize upon a miscue by his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Alex Bowman, who put his pole-winning No. 48 Chevrolet in the outside retaining wall with six laps remaining Sunday. That contact allowed Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to pass him for the race lead and jet off to a 1.205-second win – the 32-year-old Californian’s first series trophy of the year.

“I knew me coming towards those guys they were going to start moving around and making mistakes and I felt like if I could just keep pressure on Alex [Bowman], he may make a mistake and he caught the wall there and I got around him easier than I expected to,” the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Larson said. “Still had to work hard though. My balance in clean air was really loose just like those guys were. Hats off to the whole team.”

Bowman, who started from pole position, led 43 laps and was obviously disappointed even in a second-place outcome, coming so close to his first victory of the year.

“Guess I choked that one away for sure,” Bowman said, revealing he actually hit the wall harder the lap before he got passed. “Just kind of burned myself up. Saw the 5 [Larson] coming, so I moved around a little bit.

“Man, I hate that for this Ally 48 group they deserve better than that. Just a couple mistakes there. Felt like we were okay all day there.”

23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace finished third, leading a season high 56 laps in the No. 23 Toyota. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe finished fourth in the No. 19 Toyota – the afternoon proving to be season best finishes for Larson, Bowman, Wallace and Briscoe.

JGR’s Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five finishing order and won Stage 2 – his 15 laps out front are most on the year for him.

The day’s most dominant driver was Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, whose No. 12 Ford led a race best 124 laps, only to suffer an engine failure with 60 laps remaining. A huge blast of smoke burst out of the car as it slowed abruptly onto the frontstretch from a top-five position.

He ended up 36th of the 37 cars, the 2023 season champion suffering his third straight DNF of the year.

“I didn’t have any warning,” said Blaney, a runner-up in the previous two Homestead races. “When I got back to wide open down the front, that was all she wrote. Just stinks. Really fast Ford Mustang, led a lot of laps, lost a little bit of track position with stuff on pit road, but got back to third and it was a great race between me, Bubba and Larson. I’m sure Denny [Hamlin] was going to get back into it, it was going to be quite a battle in the last 60 laps or so.

“Just didn’t really work out for us. We’ll continue to keep fighting. I appreciate the 12 guys for giving me just a hot rod today, an incredibly, incredibly fast race car today. We’ll keep our head up. Just one of those things where it isn’t really going our way right now. But the good news is we’re bringing fast cars and that’s all you can ask for.”

Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing’s Chris Buescher rallied to a sixth-place finish, followed by Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, RFK’s Ryan Preece and Spire Motorsports’ Justin Haley.

With the win Larson moved into second place in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, 36 points behind Hendrick teammate, Daytona 500 winner William Byron. Bowman is now third in the championship, 39 points back. The fourth member of the team, Chase Elliott finished 18th and is sixth in the standings

The promising start to the season a strong confidence-builder for all the drivers.

“Had to keep plugging away, proud of myself, proud of the team, just a lot of gritty hard work there today between damage on pit road, qualifying bad, bad restarts all that stuff,” said Larson, whose 30 career wins are now second only to NASCAR Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon (93) and Jimmie Johnson (83) among Hendrick drivers.

“Just super pumped,” Larson said. “One of the coolest wins I think of my Cup career just because of all the heartbreak here, the heartbreak yesterday. Just kept my head down and kept digging.”

The heartbreak Larson referred to was his 2-for-3 showing in his three-peat attempt. He won Friday’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race and suffered a gut-wrenching near-miss in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race – an afternoon where he led the most laps only to get tapped from behind in an overtime restart and finish fourth.

Larson will attempt the three-race sweep at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in April, hoping to equal the work of two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch who is the only driver in history to win all three national series races on the same weekend – and he did it twice, ironically accomplishing the feat at Bristol in 2010 and 2017.

The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action next Sunday at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway for the first short track race of the season, the Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Byron is the defending race winner.

• Drivers Entered: 37
• Laps Scheduled: 267
• Margin of Victory: 01.205 Seconds
• Time of Race: 3 Hours 2 Minutes 13 Seconds
• Average Speed: 131.876
• Cautions: 4 for 27 laps
• Lead Changes: 27
• Green Flag Passes: 4,671 (19.5 passes per green flag lap)

• Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Straight Talk Wireless 400
• Race Winner: Kyle Larson
• Age: 32
• Team : No 5 - HendrickCarscom Chevrolet
• Owner: Rick Hendrick
• Crew Chief: Cliff Daniels
• Kyle Larson won the Straight Talk Wireless 400, his 30th victory in 372 Cup Series races
• This is his first victory and fourth top-10 finish in 2025
• This is his second victory and sixth top-10 finish in 12 races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Alex Bowman (second) posted his fourth top-10 finish in ten races at Homestead-Miami Speedway It is his fifth top-10 finish in 2025
• Bubba Wallace (third) posted his second top-10 finish in seven races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Shane Van Gisbergen (32nd) was the highest finishing rookie
• William Byron leads the point standings by 36 points over Kyle Larson