After the race, Larson could only shake his head and laugh at the dramatic turn of events that somehow, someway all came together to allow him to move on, despite an absolutely-destroyed race car.

“I had kind of given up there the last lap. I saw the No. 88 (Alex Bowman) made a couple of passes and that’s who it sounded like we were in the points battle with. I knew I was screwed,” admitted Larson. “Then, all of a sudden, they said they were all crashing … and it had to have been 45 seconds by the time I even got back over there.

“I ran really hard through (Turns) 1 and 2. We had a lot of right-front damage and so much camber and tow in our car that we knew the right front would blow if I ran hard. But I ran hard through (Turns) 3 and 4 and blew a right front and got into the fence,” Larson recalled. “I could see the No. 96 (Jeffrey Earnhardt) and I knew I needed that point to get to the tie-breaker … and then I hit the wall again.  Thankfully, somehow, we got the tie-breaker. I’m disappointed we didn’t get the win today, because I felt like I had the fastest car, but at the same time I’m just happy to make it to the next round.”

In regards to Earnhardt, Larson said he was just hoping the No. 96 would stay put long enough for him to get to the checkered flag.

“He was like 100 feet from the start/finish line. I could start to see him creep in when I was getting to (turn) 16,” he said. “I was like, gosh, don’t go, don’t go, and we were able to make it.

“I was pretty lucky. In fact, that – that was some damn good luck there.”

Larson admitted that had the race ran green following the caution flag with 40 to go that set up a fuel-mileage race, he felt he had the winning cards in his hand.

“I would have liked the race to play out there and stay green because it sounded like Brad (Keselowski) was short on fuel and we were going to be able to make it, I thought, after all the saving we had been doing,” said Larson. “But it didn’t work out and then we had that crazy restart.

“I knew it would be tight through (turn) one and wouldn’t turn great, but I didn’t know we’d all go in there and not be able to turn at all. I was even going to be lucky to make the corner,” he added. “Then the No. 2 (Keselowski) came straight through and hit the wall head-on … and I ran into his back bumper and destroyed the right front. I was pretty mad at myself there.”

Mad or not, Larson heads to Dover Int’l Speedway with a chance to continue his quest for a first-career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship.

That’s a feeling he said he’ll rest easy with for the rest of the week.

“Man, this feels good,” said Larson of moving on. “Now we can move on to next week and try and get a good second round. There are some good tracks coming up for us, aside from Talladega, of course. Anybody can be good there.

“We’ll see how it goes. I’m optimistic.”