Kyle Larson wins at Kansas Speedway after 'wild' photo finish

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The Kentucky Derby wasn't the only big race with a photo finish this weekend.

NASCAR's race at Kansas Speedway saw the closest finish in its history Sunday night — the closest thing to a tie that has ever occurred in 76 years of big-league stock car racing — as Kyle Larson beat Chris Buescher to the line by the narrowest of margins.

Larson's victory was officially put at 0.001 second, a gap so small that the electronic scoring system initially got the finish incorrect.

IT WAS THAT CLOSE PEOPLE! pic.twitter.com/PU0wqKOFyW

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 6, 2024

But after a review of NASCAR's high speed cameras — similar to the one that determined the Kentucky Derby finish — officials ruled the nose of Larson's car was slightly ahead of Buescher's.

"I got to the finish line and had no clue if I won or not," Larson said. "I really didn't honestly care because I was just like, 'Man, that was frickin' awesome.'"

Buescher initially thought he won the race because NASCAR's timing system put his No. 17 atop the scoring pylon, and his team celebrated what seemed like a first victory of the season. FS1's TV broadcast even labeled Buescher as the winner.

But within seconds, NASCAR reviewed the high speed camera and saw it was actually Larson, not Buescher, who was the real victor.

"When we crossed the stripe, they put the 17 on top with a gap of 0.000," said Cliff Daniels, Larson's crew chief. "Kyle was saying, 'Did we get it?' I'm like, 'No, good effort, good fight today.

"And then Tyler (Monn), our spotter, he started screaming (that they won). That was cool."

The Kansas win was the second of the season for Larson, who is embarking on a busy month of May in which he will attempt the so-called "Double" — running the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 in the same day.

On the other side of things, it was a blow to Buescher — whose team has struggled compared to last season and is in need of a win.

"We were celebrating down the backstretch and looked at the pylon and we were P1 up there," Buescher said. "Everything we had said we had gotten it. Obviously not.

"The only thing I have to go off of is a grainy photo right now and at this point it just sounds like I am complaining, and I guess I am because I don't see it in that. I don't understand how the timing system can read it out one way and not the other. We just gotta understand it better."

Required reading

• Year of Kyle Larson? NASCAR, Indy 500 and High Limit make him the face of '24
• Chris Buescher on parenting, faulty speedometers and the Chick-fil-A deal that wasn't: 12 Questions

(Photo:Logan Riely / Getty Images)