BROOKLYN, Mich. – After running second to Donny Schatz in Saturday night’s 5-hour Energy Knoxville Nationals, Kyle Larson came to Michigan fired up and seeking vengeance on Sunday afternoon.

And though he never led a lap in regulation, Larson seized that revenge and honored the wishes of his team owner Chip Ganassi to “remember the priority,” making a spectacular four-wide pass on an overtime restart to blast by Martin Truex Jr. and win Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400.

Larson forced his way up the middle from fourth as the green flag flew with two laps to go, dispatching Matt Kenseth, Erik Jones and Truex to grab the point off Turn 2 and never looking back from there.

He drove off over the final four miles, even as Truex made a final-gasp charge, crossing the checkered flag .310 of a second in front for his fourth-career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory and third in a row at Michigan Int’l Speedway.

The 25-year-old from Elk Grove, California led only the final two circuits, in a race that was extended to 202 laps after Paul Menard and Michael McDowell got together on the backstretch to set up overtime.

“I have no idea how that worked, honestly!” an ecstatic Larson admitted in victory lane. “I was running a few options through my head on what to do if I got a good jump … and that was one of them and it worked out perfectly.”

“I can’t believe that it happened and we just won this race, because we were struggling all day. We were definitely not as good as we have been the last two times out here, but we persevered and had some good restarts at the end that got us here. Wow. I can’t believe it.”

For Larson, it was a magical ending to a week that started Wednesday night with a preliminary feature win at Knoxville and continued with Ganassi permitting him to return to Knoxville for Saturday night’s championship feature.

Though he came one position short of sweeping the weekend, Larson repaid Ganassi’s faith in him with Sunday’s pandemonium-filled victory celebration.

“I want to thank (Chip) for finding me in 2011 … bringing me up from USAC to race for him. I want to thank all my fans; it’s been an incredible week for me. Being able to run at Knoxville Nationals yesterday and run second to Donny Schatz and then come here and win and beat Martin Truex, who is our Donny Schatz (in Cup) right now … it’s definitely a week I’ll never forget.”

After the first two stages ran without incident, the final stage turned into a revolving door of fuel strategy and track position that seemed to change lap after lap.

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