Kyle Larson acknowledged he was looking ahead to Bristol Motor Speedway, but the end of his 51-race drought came a week earlier than he expected.

Fresh from his NASCAR Cup Series victory at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway — and just nine points behind Chase leader Denny Hamlin — Larson brings renewed confidence to Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race (7:30 p.m. ET on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“I did not think that I would break the streak here,” Larson said after taking the checkered flag at WWT Raceway last Sunday. “I was more looking at next week (Bristol), but this definitely built some momentum, and we just have to keep it going.

“There’s still a lot of racing left, but we need more days like today.”

Under the lights at Bristol, Larson and Hamlin will go head-to-head at a track where both have had success. Larson has posted seven top fives—including all three of his career victories—in the last eight races at Thunder Valley.

Hamlin has four wins at the 0.533-mile, high-banked concrete track, including three victories in the Night Race. The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota considered himself fortunate to retain the Chase lead after respective finishes of 18th and ninth in the first two events of the postseason.

“(At Darlington, in the Chase opener), we had good performance,” Hamlin said. “We were really good, and just circumstances. But this week (at WWT Raceway), we weren’t very good.

“Tough day on pit road at the end, or generally. We were able to come out of it with something, and the competition also helped.”

Indeed. Christopher Bell, 18 points behind Hamlin in third place, had a chance to grab the series lead at Gateway before being collected in a four-car accident on Lap 223 and finishing 19th.

Bell is the defending winner of the Night Race, with seven top-10 finishes in his 10 starts at the track.

Ryan Blaney, fourth in the Chase standings and 33 points in arrears, was a victim of brake rotor failure at WWT Raceway. The driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford finished second to Ty Gibbs in the April race at Bristol.

“We’ve still got a long way to go in this thing,” Blaney said Wednesday in a Zoom meeting with reporters. “There’s still eight (races) left. It stinks to give points away, but we’re still not out of it by any means.

“So, we’ve just got to go into (Bristol), head held high like we normally do, and go try to run well and make up what we lost.”

Despite Hamlin’s ninth-place result at Gateway, only three Chase drivers gained points on the series leader, with Larson chopping the largest number (40 points) off Hamlin’s advantage. Eleven drivers, however, lost ground to the top seed.

Larson is the only driver to gain points on Hamlin in both Chase races.

Joey Logano finished third from the pole last Sunday and trimmed his deficit to Hamlin to 51 points. Logano has two Bristol victories, but none since 2015. In last year’s Night Race, he broke a streak of five straight Bristol finishes outside the top 20 with a fifth-place run. The three-time series champion was seventh in this year’s spring race.

Justin Allgaier looks for Chase turnaround at Bristol

Late-race issues in the first two NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase races cost top-seeded Justin Allgaier the Chase lead.

That’s a situation the driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet hopes to remedy in Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET on CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Having lost a lead of more than 200 points at the Chase reset, Allgaier finished 17th at Darlington after late contact with the outside wall and followed that with a 13th-place run at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

Allgaier’s difficulties paved the way for Sheldon Creed to seize the Chase lead with a victory at Darlington and a second-place run last Saturday. Creed comes to Bristol with a three-point edge over the top seed.

“I can’t think of a better place to head to than Bristol this weekend,” said Allgaier, who has collected two wins and 13 top fives in 27 starts at the 0.533-mile concrete speedway. “This has always been one of my favorite tracks. We’ve always been really strong here, and I know that we will have that same capability again on Friday.

“(The team) has been locked in all week, and we know what we need to do when we hit the track. We’ve had this race circled on the calendar, and we’re ready to get out there and see what we can do.”

Creed managed to finish second at Gateway in the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet, despite his crew having to make significant adjustments to the car throughout the race.

“The guys are just doing a really good job and bringing the best stuff we have in the shop right now,” Creed said after the race in a video posted by Braking Bob. “It’s a fun time to be driving the 00. When we show up and can be fast, even when it’s not driving great, we’re still up there towards the front. That makes it really enjoyable.” 

Carson Kvapil left the St. Louis-area track with a fifth-place finish and a nine-point deficit to Creed. Gateway race winner Jesse Love is fourth in the Chase standings, 16 points back, but there’s considerable distance back to the next two places.

Sam Mayer and Austin Hill both are 61 points out of the lead, though Mayer has gained five positions in the standings since the Chase began.