When racing resumed with 15 laps left, Erik Jones tried to force his way to the inside and make the battle for the lead a three-wide affair, which allowed Truex to soar to the lead from the outside as Logano slotted into second.

Behind them, William Byron got loose exiting turn four on the bottom of a four-wide battle, tagging Clint Bowyer before his car cut hard to the right and smashed nose-first into the outside wall. It caught air, landed on the hood of Ryan Newman’s machine and burst into flames before rolling to a stop in the infield grass, where Byron quickly climbed out and walked away.

Also collected in the multi-car melee were Ty Dillon, Jamie McMurray and Matt Kenseth.

Following a 13-minute red flag, Truex led the field back to green for the nine-lap sprint to the finish. He did all he could to get away quickly, despite Harvick powering from sixth to second in less than a lap, but Harvick reeled him in as Truex’s tires faded.

Though Truex tried to hang on, the handling of his car went away and he was no match for Harvick in the end.

“I thought we were going to be alright there, but with three or four to go, my car just got real tight and I chattered the right front off of turn four,” said Truex. “At that point, I was like, ‘Oh boy, that’s not good.’ We had been so tight all night and I didn’t know where to go once he (Harvick) got there. If I went to the top, he was just going to catch me on the bottom. I ran where I felt I could run the fastest, and I did and it just wasn’t enough.

“It was a good strategy call by Cole (Pearn, crew chief) and overall, just a hell of an effort by everybody on our team,” Truex added. “We had to fight hard because we were awful at the start of the race. … Overall, it was a good fun night. We definitely overachieved, so that’s always good.”

Logano crossed the line in third ahead of Larson, who rallied back through the field to finish fourth, but lamented a win that “definitely got away from us.”

“We had a really good car tonight. Our Clover Chevy was fast,” said Larson. “I always run pretty well here at Kansas, so it was nice to lead some laps. I thought we were going to have a really good shot to win there, but Kevin (Harvick) was able to get to my outside and after that, I was tight in traffic.

“(Ryan) Blaney was just side-drafting really hard and I was as high as I could get. We made contact and we got a bunch of damage,” Larson noted. “I hate that we didn’t turn today into a win, but it’s satisfying to see how much speed our car had tonight.”

Denny Hamlin completed the top five, followed by Paul Menard, Erik Jones, Kurt Busch, Aric Almirola and Kyle Busch.