CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It was quite a memorable day for Hendrick Motorsports as their cars finished first, second, and third days after one of their drivers was sidelined with an injury.
William Byron took the win at Las Vegas in a dominant performance where he led a race-high 176 laps.
It looked as though the victory might slip away from Byron, though, as Kyle Larson gained the lead on a late green flag pit sequence with about 30 laps to go.
Larson led by a large margin until a caution came out with around five laps remaining that forced the race into overtime and one final pit stop.
Martin Truex Jr. stayed on the track to be set up in the lead on the final restart. Meanwhile, Byron inched out ahead of Larson on pit road to start on the front row.
Byron quickly moved past Truex and kept the rest of the field in his rearview mirror as he cruised to the fifth win of his NASCAR Cup Series career.
"We knew we had speed so we knew we just had to have the right things play out," said Byron to the media after the race. "I knew [my pit crew] could get it done at the end."
Lasron trailed close behind in second with fellow Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman in third, creating a 1-2-3 finish for the team. Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell rounded out the top 5.
The fourth Hendrick Motorsports car was piloted by Josh Berry, who finished 29th in just his third career NASCAR Cup Series race. Berry was rushed into the No. 9 Chevrolet over the weekend as Chase Elliott suffered a leg injury during a snowboarding accident. There is no timetable for Elliott's return at this time.
The race ran mostly incident-free save for a crash that took out polesitter Joey Logano on lap 182. Logano was squeezed by Brad Keselowski coming out of turn 4 and forced into the wall.
The contact sent Logano spinning through the infield and damaged his car enough to end his day, relegating him to 36th, last on the grid. It's the first time a polesitter has finished last since Larson had a similar fate at the August Daytona race last season.
"I don't know what to say about it... just got squeezed up, kind of a bummer," Logano told the media after the wreck. "A bad day got worse, unfortunately."
It was a brutal end to a disappointing day for Logano, who led the first 10 laps before being shuffled way back in the running order.
Byron took the lead from Logano at lap 10 and did not seem to be in the mood to give it up.
The top spot was well in hand in the early stages but positions continued to shuffle in the top 10, with Larson and Ross Chastain keeping a close pace behind Byron, who easily won stage 1.
Larson kept the pressure on Byron to begin stage 2 but the No. 24 broke away and seemed to be the strongest car of the day.
Byron zoomed off to win stage 2 and held the lead through most of the race's final stage.
Larson took the lead during the race's final pit sequence and seemed poised to steal the win from his Hendrick teammate. Then, Aric Almirola slammed the wall in the race's closing laps and prompted a caution.
Byron zoomed around Truex and held off the whole field on his way to winning at Las Vegas.
AJ Allmendinger lost control on the last lap and was slammed by Ryan Preece. Chase Briscoe, Michael McDowell, and Erik Jones were involved in the crash as well.