TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Kyle Larson threw his left hand off the wheel in disgust with a half-lap remaining at Talladega Superspeedway, watching helplessly as his No. 5 Chevrolet plummeted from the lead.
"I screwed up," he said. "I felt like, 'Man, another one I just gave away.' And I probably never am going to have an opportunity to win a speedway race that easily with so many allies around me. And so I was just mad."
About 30 seconds later, he was jubilant after picking the perfect time to make some perfect moves for his first victory at the 2.66-mile oval that has been among his worst in the NASCAR Cup Series.
"All of a sudden, everything just opened up," he said. "An unbelievable way to get my first speedway win. It all just worked out."
Desperate for a rebound after his worst finish of the Chase, the defending series champion expanded his points lead by a wide margin with a breathtaking rally from 11th to first through the last two corners of the final lap.
Larson took the white flag in the lead but lost 10 spots in the first two turns after being unable to handle several bumps by the No. 33 Chevy Austin Hill, who was trying to push him to the win.
"Just crazy to get the win after falling back as far as we did," said Larson, who benefited from a drafting push by the No. 1 Chevy of Ross Chastain (who took fourth). "I went left, and everybody was just staying high."
In a three-wide finish, Larson took the checkered flag by a few feet over Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, who spent much of the race pushing Larson to the front. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished 0.066 seconds behind in third place.
"It's good that Kyle won," Byron said. "We worked really well together all day. If I couldn't win, I wanted him to win."
Larson credited the drafting help from Byron and several other Chevy drivers who kept him near the front.
"I felt like the rest of the Chevys were going to go wherever I went," Larson said. "I could kind of carve the way, and they would follow, and that just gives you a lot of confidence."
His faith in a title repeat was also restored.
With his third victory in the past seven races, Larson moved 73 points ahead of Denny Hamlin in the Chase standings with two races remaining.
There are 76 maximum points available for a race win, so it's possible that Larson could clinch his third championship with a win Nov. 1 at Martinsville Speedway. After leading by only five points entering the race, Larson gleefully blurted out a vulgarity when he saw the postrace standings that had Hamlin virtually conceding defeat.
"They've done a lot of things right, and a lot of things have really gone right, and we've not done that," Hamlin said. "And so we've got a big old gap, and I think as long as (Larson) can keep his four tires on it the next two weeks, then he'll be a champion again."
Larson drove like a champion Sunday as he rarely has at the Cup circuit's three drafting tracks where drivers run inches apart at 200 mph.
Prior to his 35th career victory, Larson had a series-worst average finish of 30.6 at Talladega, Daytona and Atlanta, and hadn't won on any of the tracks in 58 prior starts (the longest superspeedway drought among active drivers).
But he led 21 laps and engineered two impressive comebacks, the first starting with 15 laps remaining after he dropped from the lead to 21st in four laps.
He had made his way back to second with six laps remaining when a 15-car crash erupted. The race went into overtime after a 13-minute cleanup for a pileup that included Chase driver Joey Logano's Ford landing on its roof.
While Larson made nearly all the right moves in the finicky draft where a split-second mistake can a large pileup, other title contenders made some costly errors over the course of 500 miles.
A 12-car crash on the 132nd lap collected five Chase drivers, effectively ending the championship hopes for Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick.
"Just a bumper car-type thing," said Blaney, who lost control of his No. 12 Ford on a bump from Bubba Wallace after swinging into the top lane. "Ended up crashing and took a lot of others. Maybe it wasn't the best move by me. I have to think about it more.
"This one hurts. We needed to have a good day."
Christopher Bell, who entered just five points behind Larson, crashed after spinning while entering the pits under green for his first pit stop on Lap 56. He finished 35th and dropped to third in the standings. 74 points behind Larson.
The Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing trio of Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski swept the top three spots in the first stage with a unique strategy that had the rest of the field nearly a lap down at one point.
With many drivers conserving fuel to shorten their first green-flag pit stop, Buescher, Preece and Keselowski broke from the pack with laps that were 10 seconds faster. They had a lead of more than 40 seconds and easily stayed more than half a lap ahead of the field through the end of the stage on the 98th lap.
"A great game of poker where we just called the field," Keselowski radioed his team. "I love it."
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to its final short track of the season with Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, Nov. 1. Chase Elliott outdueled Hamlin for the victory earlier this season.
