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In a city that prides itself as the gambling capital of the world, Hendrick Motorsports has made Las Vegas its safest bet in town.

Kyle Larson won his second straight race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, leading 181 of 267 laps and holding off a hard-charging Tyler Reddick in the Pennzoil 400. It's the third straight win for HMS at this track and the third for Larson in the last seven Vegas races. The last time he won the spring event here, in 2021, he wound up NASCAR Cup Series champion.

Is Larson setting up for a repeat in 2024?

"I think it will be much harder," Larson cautioned. "When we won here in 2021, we killed them at the end. This, we had to fight really hard for it."

It's true Reddick tried his best, getting to Larson's back bumper after chasing him down following a restart for Corey LaJoie's crash with 27 laps remaining. But the ability for Larson to control the race, and Reddick's line, won out as HMS continues to flex its muscle as the winningest NASCAR program of all time.

"I kept trying to run higher and higher and you know," Reddick said, "[Larson]'s kind of running in the middle of the racetrack, which is pretty efficient to block both lanes."

So Larson trudged on to victory, the 303rd in HMS history while continuing the efficiency of Chevrolet to start 2024. They've won the first three Cup races despite the oldest body style, the only manufacturer not to produce Next Gen updates this past offseason.

It hasn't mattered. Larson's teammate William Byron prevailed in the Daytona 500 and may have had the fastest car if not for an unfortunate piece of debris that forced an extra green flag stop for the No. 24 team. Byron still sits fourth in points while Larson leads, an early indicator the two Championship 4 contenders from last year are in perfect position to duel once again come the fall.

It's a key year for HMS, in its 40th year of existence and going the extra mile to make a meaningful anniversary. But let's not forget the early surprises of other Chevrolet teams, too: Daniel Suarez won at Atlanta last week with Trackhouse Racing, and his teammate, Ross Chastain, sits fifth in the standings. Seven top-five finishes in the first three races are the most of any manufacturer.

"The Chevrolet contingent right now is as tight as it's ever been," HMS GM Jeff Andrews said. "And the key partner groups and even outside of that are working really good together because we know we have very little margin here."

Andrews is being a little modest when it comes to that "margin for error." The HMS stats speak for themselves in the Next Gen era: 23 wins in 75 races, an absurd 30.6% win percentage with roughly half coming on those all-important intermediates. You just can't convince them of that.

"The continuity of our stuff and the depth of our notes I think was really helpful for today," Larson's crew chief Cliff Daniels said. "We're going to have to keep evolving pretty quick because the more they start to get their stuff figured out. The gap is going to get closed."

Traffic Report

Green: Noah Gragson. Six months ago, Gragson was out of the sport, a tough rookie season turned nightmare after NASCAR suspended him for liking a racially insensitive post on social media. Now, after his reinstatement in December, Gragson has two top-10 finishes three races into his new ride at Stewart-Haas Racing. Three years after Larson's redemption story, is Noah next?

Yellow: Ty Gibbs. Gibbs wound up a hard-charging fifth at Vegas, easily his best run since winning the exhibition Clash at the Coliseum last month. But he's left to wonder what might have been after losing first gear, costing him track position every time down pit road, paired with an uncontrolled tire penalty that trapped Gibbs back in the pack during the final stage.

Red: Joey Logano. It's not often you give this flag to the pole sitter, as Logano held on for a top-10 finish at Vegas, his first of the season. Here's the problem: three front row starts in qualifying haven't translated into race speed for a Team Penske organization with high expectations. A -65 position differential is a series worst and leaving all sorts of points on the table.

Speeding Ticket: 23XI Racing. Reddick didn't mince words after locking up the tires on a caution-flag stop which cost him 14 spots in the race.

"Just stupid mistakes on pit road," Reddick said. "Same shit, different year, right?"

That track position could have made the difference in Reddick's bid for victory. It wasn't the first stop where Reddick lost spots throughout the day; other than a two-tire stop early in the race, 23XI didn't do much to help him on pit road. And Bubba Wallace was even worse, losing 13 laps due to a bizarre situation where a lug nut wasn't put on right during a stop and eventually needed to get cut off the wheel.

These problems aren't new; they've recurred throughout 23XI's ascension into a playoff-caliber NASCAR program. Failing to clean this up, over a period of years, is keeping them from taking the next step.

Oops!

A relatively clean race at Las Vegas was marred by not one but two wrecks by Christopher Bell. Poor tire pressure settings likely caused the first one after Bell's right rear went down on Lap 10.

That was followed by wreck toward the end of Stage 2 in which Bell simply lost it coming off Turn 2.

The frustration on the radio from crew chief Adam Stevens describes the mood in the No. 20 camp. Since making the Championship 4 last November, they've wrecked in three of the past four races, including the season finale in which a mechanical failure crushed their championship dreams.