Christopher Bell would snag the Pole Position on Saturday. It was his third overall pole at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2023, 2022). Fellow playoff driver Tyler Reddick, who has a pole of his own at LVMS, would line up outside of Bell to start the race. Ironically, it’s the 2nd starting position at LVMS that has produced the most winners (7), so Reddick was in a great spot to start the race. However, neither Reddick nor Bell have ever won at Las Vegas.

The South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a 400.5 mile race (267 laps), with stages ending on lap 80, 165, and 267.

With Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick taking up the front row for the race, here’s where the other drivers in the Round of 8 started:

So the Green Flag flew to start the first stage (80 laps) and went green the majority of the time. On lap 64 of 80, Austin Dillon (#3)would crash into the outside wall after Daniel Hemric made contact to the rear of his vehicle entering the turn. Dillon would be done for the day and finish 37th after qualifying 13th. He fell back and was hit by Hemric while running 26th. Daniel Henric would actually go on to finish inside the top 20 (19th).

During the caution laps, Erik Jones would need to come back in since it’s required that all cars have four tires while going around the track. He left one of them on the track as it was obviously not tight. Jones would finish in 25th, a lap down.

The rest of the first stage went off without a hitch. Tyler Reddick would take the stage, followed by Bell, Truex Jr., William Byron, Brad Keselowski, Ty Gibbs, Chris Buescher, Joey Logano, Austin CIndric, and Kyle Larson.

​Denny Hamlin was the only driver to stay out during the caution, and would restart in P1.

Caution flew on lap 90 (10 of 85 in Stage 2):

Tyler Reddick tried to pass the #9 of Chase Elliott on the outside. He would be squeezed into the wall by Elliott. But that was only because Martin Truex Jr. squeezed him up the track, not knowing that Reddick was coming hard on the outside to make it three-wide. So Reddick then comes off the wall across the nose of Elliott, and both of them headed toward the infield. While coming down, Reddick would hit the right side of Keselowski, spinning the #6 and sending him up the track into the outside wall. Ryan Blaney, while attempting to evade Keselowski would hit the outside wall on his right side.

Back to Reddick: After hitting Brad, Reddick would continue to slide sideways onto the infield. He then hit a bump, caught air, and would end up rolling onto his roof down the front stretch, and eventually the car balanced out and Reddick came down on all fours. He would drive the car to his pit but the damage was too much and he would retire for the day and finish in 35th position, one spot in front of Keselwoski who also had too much damage to continue.

The #12 of Ryan Blaney would need work done to his rear right link after damaging it while contacting the wall. Blaney would still be running at the checkered flag, but finish seven laps down in 32nd place.

So what happened to Chase Elliott and the #9? He had too much damage to his right side to ignore and would spend multiple laps in his pit stall attempting to fix it. On lap 107, he would take the car to the garage. He would re-enter the track (lap 135) but finish in 33rd, 37 laps down.

​The #5 of Kyle Larson would have multiple issues on lap 129 while pitting. The rear right tire was not secure, so the car needed to be jacked back up and secured before he could continue and try to stay on the lead lap. He would then need to come back in the very next lap to change out the rear left tire which they never got to the first time. Despite the issues, Kyle Larson would end up finishing in 11th position for the day, on the lead lap.