After looking like he was going to pick up his first XFINITY Series victory last weekend in Charlotte, it took Kyle Larson just 53 laps to get it done in Pocono in the inaugural race at the venue in the series.

In what was supposed to be the rain free day of the weekend, rain halted the racing 53 laps into the 100 laps race and by the NASCAR rule book, once the race is passed halfway it is deemed official if weather comes. Pole-sitter Erik Jones was closing in on Larson when the rain hit the race track.

NASCAR waited an hour and 35 minutes before calling the event due to rain. Once the track was near dry it began to pour, which led the series director to call the remainder of the race.

Larson led on several different occasions for a total of 27 circuits. It marks the Chip Ganassi Racing drivers’ fourth career win in 82 XFINITY Series starts, and his second career win at Pocono, winning an ARCA event two years ago.

“I’m happy with it,” Larson said of the rain coming in and ending the race. “We were good, a little bit better than i thought we would be. We were more comparable to the Gibbs cars than I thought we would be based off practice and qualifying.”

Jones finished second on the afternoon after starting from pole, but never leading a lap. For the majority of the 53 laps the No. 20 car was in the runner-up position, first chasing his teammate Kyle Busch then chasing Larson. He felt like this race was another race that she let slip away.

“We had by far one of the best cars in the field today, so it’s unfortunate,” Jones said of his second-place effort. “Our Camry was good, but just not enough time t get back to the lead and have a shot at it. It’s pretty frustrating because this whole year has been a season of just missing it by that much. We missed it in a couple races by penalties and circumstances and today was another one of those days where we had another good shot at the win, but with the way it played out it just didn’t work out for us.”

Ty Dillon finished third, posting his fourth top-five finish of 2016.

After leading the opening 16 laps, Busch couldn’t get back through traffic to take the lead back after making a pit stop under the first caution flag. Finishing fourth on the afternoon, he felt that the team was a step behind.

Joey Logano rounded out the top five after getting off-sequence with the competition.

Elliott Sadler, Paul Menard, Brandon Jones, Daniel Suarez and Alex Bowman rounded out the top 10.

Brennan Poole finished 12th, ending a streak of four consecutive top 10 finishes, which is a career-high in his rookie season.

On Lap 20, Justin Allgaier made contact with the wall in the “Tunnel Turn” which resulted in a 39th-place finish. The No. 7 team dropped to seventh in the points after starting the race third in the standings.

The series is set to return to action next Saturday at Michigan, where Busch is the defending winner of the event, which was his first race back in the XFINITY Series after his leg injuries last February in Daytona. .

Dustin Albino