Brent Crews' gutsy Bristol drive nets third-place finish, heartbreaking loss

Brent Crews stood on pit road following Saturday's NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, looking as frustrated as a driver could after a third-place finish in their rookie season. 

Despite a tire disadvantage to the dominant driver of the night in Kyle Larson over the race's final run, Crews held Larson off and fought hard with Connor Zilisch for the race lead in the closing laps of the Suburban Propane 300. And as he had done all night, Crews was aggressive, ripping the slick top side of the racetrack in an effort to make a run at Zilisch. 

Ultimately, Crews' aggression is what caused him to lose a chance at victory. A brush with the wall was all Larson needed to take second, while Zilisch went on to win. 

For Crews, an 18-year-old rookie, the loss was disappointing but showed how much potential the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has. 

Brent Crews comes up just shy of first career win

"What I feel like I did right was going up there and running the top really, really hard and getting beside the 1 in [turns] 3 and 4," Crews told CW Sports. "I had a really flawless 3 and 4 to be able to put it right outside of the 1."

"The part I'm going to not be able to go to sleep tonight on is just going up there, getting a little loose and running into the fence a couple times. It's tough. It was really cool running against Connor and Larson there at the end."

Crews, who was unable to compete in four races this season due to not being 18 years old, is 18th in the O'Reilly Series standings, 75 points outside of the provisional 12-driver postseason field. He has three top 10 finishes in five starts.