Just minutes after Kyle Larson crossed the finish line on the most dominating victory ever for a Hendrick Motorsports driver, his team rushed his 9-year-old son to the winning Chevrolet.

Owen Larson was placed on the window, half in the car, half out, as his dad drove a victory lap around Bristol Motor Speedway with his son holding the No. 1 finger in the air. He later joined his dad atop the car during Saturday night’s victory lane celebration.

“We had a little boys’ weekend here this weekend,” Larson said. “We’ll bring some hardware home tonight, too.”

Larson dominated the first elimination race of NASCAR’s 10-race playoff portion of the season by leading all but 38 of the 500 laps at the track in Bristol, Tennessee — the most laps led ever in a race by a Hendrick driver. It easily moved him into the second round of the playoffs, while former NASCAR champions Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr., as well as Ty Gibbs and Harrison Burton, were eliminated from the 16-driver field.

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“I’ve had a lot of good cars since I’ve come to Hendrick Motorsports, but man, that was just great execution all weekend by the team,” Larson said. “We dominate a lot of races but we might not close them all out, so it feels really good to close one out here.”

The first of three elimination races in the 10-race playoffs began with Denny Hamlin, Truex, Keselowski and Burton all below the cutline and facing elimination from the 16-driver field.

Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner with four career wins at Bristol, was never really worried and finished fourth.

“My aspiration was winning,” Hamlin said. “It’s as good as what we’ve been here the last couple times. It’s all offense from this point forward.”

Burton, who used a surprise win at Daytona last month to qualify for the playoffs in the final few weeks before he loses his seat with Wood Brothers Racing, was doubtful to recover enough to advance and finished 35th. Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion, and 2017 champion Truex had a better shot at salvaging their playoffs but both came up empty.

Truex was penalized for speeding on pit road, taking him out of contention to advance, and Keselowski just didn’t have the pace. Joe Gibbs Racing had two of its four cars eliminated from the playoffs as Ty Gibbs was also penalized for speeding.

“That was just unfortunate there,” said Gibbs, who finished 15th. “Speeding penalty is on me. It’s my fault.”

Keselowski finished 26th and lamented the lack of speed in his RFK Racing Ford.

“Didn’t have the pace we wanted. We ran as hard as we could, there just wasn’t anything there,” Keselowski said. “Just got to be faster.”

Truex is retiring from full-time racing at the end of the season.

“That kind of screws up your whole season,” Truex said of the speeding penalty. “It’s on me. It was my mistake. Just really sad for my guys. We had a really good car. I hate I screwed it up, would have at least tried to see what we could do.”

Larson, meanwhile, led 462 of 500 laps, the most since Cale Yarborough led 495 laps in 1977. Larson’s laps led is the most by a Hendrick driver and marked the fifth win of the season for the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet.

It’s an impressive stat considering the Hendrick team has fielded cars for Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Terry Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr., among others.

“That’s pretty awesome because there’s been some legendary Hall of Famers race for Hendrick Motorsports, and we’ve all grown up watching Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson dominate,” Larson said. “So pretty cool to get my name on another record at Hendrick Motorsports.”

Daniel Suarez, who finished four laps down in 31st, squeezed out the final spot into the second round of the playoffs by 11 points over Gibbs.

Also advancing were Chase Elliott, who finished second, Christopher Bell, who finished fifth, regular-season champion Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Austin Cindric and Alex Bowman.

Hendrick’s entire four-car Chevrolet lineup advanced, as did all three Ford drivers from Team Penske. But Toyota lost a pair of JGR entries, and Ford lost two cars in Keselowski and Burton.

LaJoie’s final ride Corey LaJoie had already been told by Spire Motorsports it was not bringing him back next year, which gave him the rest of this season to finish out strong.

Then Spire threw him a lifeline with an unusual driver swap with Rick Ware Racing that will move Justin Haley into the Spire No. 7. LaJoie will replace Haley at RWR starting next week at Kansas Speedway.

While Haley’s deal guarantees him the seat in 2025, LaJoie will have to earn the RWR ride. But in the meantime, he wanted one final good finish with Spire. He qualified ninth and was running 11th when he was involved in a crash that essentially ended his career with Spire.

Up next: NASCAR opens the second round of the playoffs at Kansas Speedway, where Reddick won last fall and Larson won in May. Bell takes a six-point lead over Larson into Kansas.

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Cole Custer won the final race of the Xfinity Series regular season to seal the regular season championship, as well.

Custer’s win Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway gave him the driver championship over Justin Allgaier and bonus points to carry into the playoffs.

“Huge gift of momentum because our confidence was really going down the last month,” Custer said of his second win of the season.

Custer is the reigning Xfinity Series champion and although Stewart-Haas Racing is closing at the end of the season, team owner Gene Haas is keeping one Cup Series charter to run Custer next year.

Sheldon Creed finished second for the 11th time in three seasons as the Joe Gibbs Racing driver remained winless in his Xfinity Series career.

Chandler Smith finished third and was followed by Jesse Love, Ryan Truex and Sam Mayer.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., in what might be his final NASCAR national series race until at least 2026, had an issue with the radio in his headset the entire first stage. He had no access to team communication and needed to pit for four fresh tires “and a new helmet” when Earnhardt made his stop.

The helmet exchange was far from smooth — Earnhardt’s eyeglasses were pulled off his face inside the first helmet and handed to the crew without anyone realizing he didn’t have his spectacles. And, his radio fell, which caused a volume adjustment that was so loud the Hall of Famer told his spotter it was hurting his ears.

At least he doesn’t have to do it every week.

Earnhardt’s deal with sponsor Hellman’s Mayonnaise for JR Motorsports requires him to run an Xfinity Series race a year and Bristol on Friday night fulfilled the obligation. The clause doesn’t exist in 2025, and Earnhardt, who turns 50 later this year, doesn’t expect another Xfinity Series race before 2026.

He finished seventh.

Alex Bowman, who just two weeks ago was desperately trying to debunk rumors his seat was in danger, will start the first elimination race of NASCAR’s playoffs from the pole.

Bowman turned a lap at 126.720 mph Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee to earn the fifth pole of his career. Bowman heads into Saturday night’s elimination race ranked fourth in the Cup Series standings — best of all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers.

Bowman made the playoffs by winning the street race at Chicago in a victory that probably saved his seat in the No. 48 Chevrolet. Now in the playoffs, he’s untouchable and under contract at Hendrick through 2025.

Even so, he has been dogged by rumors he’ll be out of a seat at the end of the year, which Hendrick vehemently denied ahead of the start of the playoffs.

In qualifying, Bowman bested all three of his Hendrick teammates. Kyle Larson qualified second and will start Saturday night next to Bowman. William Byron qualified third.

Martin Truex Jr. of Joe Gibbs Racing was fourth and followed by Chase Briscoe of Stewart-Haas Racing and points leader Christopher Bell of Gibbs. Non-playoff driver Carson Hocevar was seventh, Denny Hamlin of Gibbs was eighth, non-playoff driver Corey LaJoie was ninth and Chase Elliott of Hendrick completed the top 10.

None of the Ford drivers made the top 10. The playoff drivers who didn’t qualify inside the top 10 were Ty Gibbs (13th), Tyler Reddick (15th), Joey Logano (20th), Ryan Blaney (22nd), Brad Keselowski (23rd), Austin Cindric (27th), Harrison Burton (34th) and Daniel Suarez (35th).

The bottom four in the standings headed into elimination are Hamlin, Keselowski, Truex and Burton. The loss of three-time Daytona 500 winner Hamlin or 2012 champion Keselowski and 2017 champion Truex would take some of NASCAR’s top names out of the title chase.