DOVER, Del. — This was the sort of race NASCAR envisioned as it massaged rules and changed aerodynamic packages and tried to upset an apple cart that for too long had carried mediocre competition.

This was veteran Matt Kenseth against upstarts Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott in a 30-lap end-of-race battle that will be remembered for a long time. Kenseth ultimately won Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway but not before Larson had had his shot at Kenseth and not before Elliott had had his shot at Larson.

They were slipping and sliding and trading moves and maneuvers as the laps wound down. In the end, perhaps it was Kenseth’s experience (at 44, he’s older than Larson, 23, and Elliott, 20, combined) that pushed him to victory lane for the first time this season. Larson was .187 of a second behind in second place.

“I think if he would have snuck inside, it would have been over,” Kenseth said of Larson. “He raced me really, really hard, but clean at the same time. He’s a great race car driver. To me, it doesn’t even seem right that he hasn’t won yet. He’s got a bunch of victories in front of him for sure. He’s a really, really clean, hard racer, and a fast learner.”

The finish of the race, while dynamic, probably would have had a much different flavor if not for an 18-car crash that basically wrote “finish” to numerous contenders, including 10-time Dover winner Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

In some cases, losing so many top dogs before race’s end dampens the show, but that certainly wasn’t the case on a cool Sunday afternoon at Dover, as the crowd was treated to some of the best racing of the season, courtesy of Kenseth, Larson and Elliott.

It was cramped but clean. Larson got a little too close to Kenseth on one lap, but both held their lines. Larson and Elliott swapped positions without conflict.

The three used up most of the width of the track, Kenseth pushing hard on every lap and Larson and Elliott swinging up and down looking for the magic line that would propel them to the front.

It would have been very easy for Larson, still winless in Sprint Cup, to hit Kenseth just hard enough to push him to the high side of the track and move by.

It didn’t happen.

“I got close to his (Kenseth’s) bumper a couple of times,” Larson said. “I may have gotten into him once. But I’m not going to do anything dirty. I respect Matt Kenseth a lot. He always races me with respect, and I try to do the same with him.

“I tried to race him as hard as I could without getting into him to beat him.”

Although he probably didn’t overthink the situation in the heat of the moment, Larson, who has four career top-10 finishes at Dover — his most any track — said he doesn’t want to build a reputation as a black-hat driver.

“I’m still early in my career,” he said. “I don’t want to make anybody mad or make any rivals. You can see there’s some drama in the sport, and it takes drivers years to get over it.”

Elliott, knocking on the door for his first win in what has been a fine rookie season, emerged from the chaos of the huge late-race wreck to challenge. He finished third, the best run of his young career.

Elliott was third over most of the closing laps. Since he was racing two drivers, his strategy was much more difficult than Larson’s.

“I was trying to get myself in a position where if they were racing to get a big run and just try to choose a lane that nobody was in, which is difficult to do when those guys are side‑by‑side racing for the lead,” Elliott said.

“I had a chance and didn’t get it done. That’s about as simple as it gets.”

It wasn’t simple at all, though. Elliott tends to be self-critical even on days when he has excellent results. In this race, he was much more than what he might define as the second loser.

The certified winner was Kenseth, but, as the sun set on an eventful race day at Dover, there had been quite a bit of drama spread across the field.

The Monster Mile had lived up to its nickname.

Follow Hembree on Twitter @mikehembree

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