Practice #1 : Kansas Speedway

• Wednesday, September 25th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

Round of 12 of NASCAR Cup Playoffs ready to roll at Kansas Speedway

With the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field trimmed by four drivers, the Round of 12 begins Sunday at Kansas Speedway with the Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN BET (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Last Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, former champions Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. were eliminated from title contention, along with relative neophytes Ty Gibbs and Harrison Burton.

That leaves Bristol race winner Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman and Chase Briscoe to vie for the championship.

All five Chevrolet drivers who made the Playoffs—including all four entries from Hendrick Motorsports—advanced to the Round of 12, with Larson retaining top seeding with a seemingly comfortable margin of 39 points above the current cut line for the Round of 8.

That’s not to say the Round of 12 won’t be intensely competitive. The bottom seven drivers in the field are separated by a mere 10 points.

Cindric was a model of consistency in the Round of 16. He was 10th at both Atlanta and Watkins Glen—the only driver to post top 10s in both races—and 13th at Bristol. Cindric scored points in three of six stages, including a win in the second stage at Atlanta.

With the points reset after the opening round, Cindric finds himself ninth in the standings, four points behind Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, who currently occupies the last eligible position for the Round of 8.

“I think, for us, it’s really replicating a similar performance from the Round of 16, the first round for us,” Cindric said about his prospects for advancement. “You look at the numbers, and what we did for the past round is probably the bare minimum of what’s going to get us to advance for this round, so from a points perspective, it definitely gets more challenging, especially the deficit we have to the top four or five guys.

“It definitely becomes more of an issue when you start to eliminate guys that are in a similar space as far as points go as what we are. Otherwise, a win obviously is what you want to do, especially to be able to do it in the first two races. That makes things a lot easier, but for us, I still think this is a no-mistakes round. This is ‘Don’t take yourself out of it and race within our limits.’”

Five of the 12 Playoff drivers are past winners at 1.5-mile Kansas. Hamlin, who finished a solid fourth at Bristol to advance, leads the group with four victories, the last coming in the spring race of 2023.

“It’s game on from here,” said Hamlin, who vaulted from negative to positive territory in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race. “We need to be on the offensive from the start of practice this weekend and put ourselves in position to get stage points and have an opportunity to win the race or get a solid finish to set ourselves up for Talladega and the ROVAL.

“Kansas has historically been one of our better tracks, maybe our best, honestly, so we are more than capable.”

Logano has three Kansas wins, but none since the fall race of 2020. Larson got the second of his two victories at the track in May, and teammate Chase Elliot scored his lone triumph in 2018. Tyler Reddick is the defending winner of the Hollywood Casino 400, having claimed his only victory at the track last year.

• Saturday, September 28th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

Christopher Bell streaks to third straight Kansas Speedway pole

For once, Chistopher Bell thinks he has a car that’s race-worthy as well as lightning fast in qualifying at Kansas Speedway.

Navigating the 1.5-mile track in 30.111 seconds (179.336 mph) in the final round of Saturday’s time trials, Bell edged Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs (179.099 mph) by 0.040 seconds for the top starting spot in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN BET (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Bell will start the first race of the Round of 12 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs from a familiar spot. He earned the Busch Light Pole Award at the track for the third consecutive race and fourth time overall.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s the people that work on this race car that made the statement,” said Bell, who claimed his second pole position this season and the 12th of his career. “We showed up with probably the best Kansas car we’ve ever had.

“It’s always been a great track for us to qualify, and it seems like whenever we go race, we’re always in the third-to-seventh range. Today it was different. It felt really, really good in practice. I felt really comfortable driving the car.”

Bell has never converted a pole into a victory at Kansas Speedway, a situation he hopes to correct on Sunday as the second round of the Playoffs begins.

“The tough thing about Kansas is maintaining the balance,” Bell said. “This place, with these (Gen 7) cars, it swings really, really bad. You’ll start off really comfortable, and depending on how your car is, you might go really tight, you might go really loose.

“Typically, the fast lane is up top, but then you have to really adjust your line to what your balance is doing. I’ve got to drive a little bit better here (Sunday) than I have in the previous Kansas races, but I definitely have the car to do it.”

Bell enters the Round of 12 second in the standings, 24 points above the current cut line for the Round of 8. Coming off his dominating victory at Bristol, top-seeded Kyle Larson will start 11th on Sunday.

Gibbs and third-place starter Kyle Busch (178.643 mph) were the only two non-Playoff drivers to advance to the final round during Saturday’s time trials.

Tyler Reddick, third in the standings, will occupy the fourth spot on the grid, followed by Joey Logano, William Byron, defending series champion Ryan Blaney, four-time Kansas winner Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Daniel Suárez.

Larson won the 2024 spring race at Kansas, while Reddick is the defending winner of this event.

Playoff drivers Alex Bowman, Austin Cindric and Chase Elliott will start 12th, 17th and 38th, respectively. Elliott was down a cylinder in practice and qualifying, necessitating an engine change.

• Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet
• Busch Pole Award Pole Winner: Christopher Bell
• Age: 29
• Team : No 20 - Rheem Toyota
• Owner: Joe Gibbs
• Crew Chief: Adam Stevens
• Christopher Bell won the Pole Award for the Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet with a lap of 30111 seconds, 179336 mph
• This is his 12th pole in 174 NASCAR Cup Series races
• This is his second pole and 17th top-10 start in 2024
• This is his fourth pole in ten races at Kansas Speedway
• Ty Gibbs (second) posted his 15th top-10 start of 2024 and his third in five races at Kansas Speedway
• Kyle Busch (third) posted his 20th top-10 start at Kansas Speedway It is his seventh in 30 races this season
• Carson Hocevar (14th) was the fastest qualifying rookie

• Sunday, September 29th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

Ross Chastain plays spoiler in NASCAR Cup Round of 12 opener at Kansas

Enter the Great Disrupter.

Ross Chastain’s No 1. Trackhouse Chevrolet came to life in the second half of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 and beat William Byron’s Chevrolet to the finish line in a hotly contested Round of 12 opener in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Chastain grabbed the lead from Martin Truex Jr. moments after the final restart on Lap 248 at Kansas Speedway and held off a charging Byron by 0.388 seconds to thwart the Playoff driver’s bid for automatic advancement into the Round of 8.

Having failed to qualify for the postseason this year, Chastain reveled in his first victory of the season, his first at Kansas and the fifth of his career.

“For us on this 1 team, it’s what Cup racing is all about,” said Chastain, who led 52 laps. “It’s what (team co-owner) Justin Marks bought into Trackhouse with Pitbull, bought into NASCAR with Trackhouse to do stuff like this—to disrupt.

“Look, there’s been times this year where we couldn’t have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington, let alone a Cup race. It’s hard. It’s really tough.

“To come and do this, there are times where I didn’t think after practicing and qualifying we had what it took. I thought we have been way stronger here in the past. It didn’t feel great all day, but our Kubota Chevy, it was better as the rubber went down, and the adjustments were great.”

Byron led 24 laps but couldn’t overcome Chastain’s aerodynamic advantage over the closing laps.

“Yeah, just clean air,” Byron said ruefully. “I feel like he got the restart he needed to, and I was in the second row just trying to clear those guys. Once I got clear of them, my balance was OK. Just a little bit tight, but just kind of inching up on him. I needed probably, you know, for it to be a longer run being in second.

“Damn it, I wanted that one really bad. It just sucks, man. You’re so close, and you know going to Talladega you know what that is. So just sucks, but proud of the effort.”

Truex finished third after restarting in the top lane and surrendering the first two positions to Chastain and Byron. Playoff driver and defending series champion Ryan Blaney rallied to finish fourth after an unscheduled pit stop for a loose wheel.

Ty Gibbs, eliminated from the Playoffs at Bristol in the final Round of 16 race, came home fifth, followed by Playoff drivers Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell (the pole winner), Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott, who started from the rear of the field after an engine change in his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Byron heads to next Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway as the series leader, with a six-point edge over Bell and Blaney and a 34-point margin over ninth-place Tyler Reddick, the first driver below the cut line for the next round.

Hamlin and Bowman are fifth and sixth in the standings, 11 and eight points above the cutoff, respectively.

For Kyle Larson, top seed in the Playoffs entering the Round of 12, Sunday’s race was an unwelcome instance of déjà vu. Reminiscent of his early exit after a slamming the wall in Turn 2 in the first Round of 16 race at Atlanta, Larson cut a right rear tire and bounced of the Turn 2 wall on Sunday at Kansas just 19 laps into the race.

During the subsequent 56-lap green-flag run to the end of Stage 1, Larson complained of a vibration in his No. 5 Chevrolet. fell one lap down and finished the stage in 35th place.

Larson got his lap back as the beneficiary car under caution for Daniel Hemric’s spin on Lap 143 and mitigated some of the damage to his points position with a 26th-place finish. Larson leaves Kansas fourth in the standings, 18 points above the current cut line for the Round of 8.

Reddick, Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric weren’t as fortunate.

Reddick, the defending race winner, could only manage a 25th-place result and leaves Kansas four points below the cutoff. Suarez finished 14th and trials Elliott and Joey Logano (tied for eighth) by 14 points.

Briscoe fought an ill-handling car and finished 24th, falling 25 points down to eighth place. Cindric sustained damage during a spin on the backstretch on Lap 157, finished four laps down in 34th and trails Logano and Elliott by 29 points.

Seeking his first victory of the season—with a record 19-year streak of winning at least one race per season on the line—Kyle Busch held the lead on Lap 26, with Chastain in pursuit. But as Busch attempted to put Briscoe a lap down though a narrow gap at the top of the track, his car broke loose and spun off Turn 2, causing the ninth caution.

“I’m sure he was racing to stay on the lead lap with whoever was in front of him there,” said Busch, who finished 19th. “Granted, they have a race to run, but back in the old days when you were under 30 (laps) to go or whatever it was, lapped traffic would kind of lay over and give you a lane and let the leaders race.

“I just wasn’t getting that, so I tried to force my hand into getting that and get to his outside, and for whatever reason, it just gave all the air in all the wrong places, and I spun out.”

The race featured 30 lead changes among 15 drivers, the latter a track record. Bell led a race-high 122 laps. Hendrick teammates Byron and Bowman won stages 1 and 2, respectively.

• Drivers Entered: 38
• Laps Scheduled: 267
• Margin of Victory: 0.388 Seconds
• Time of Race: 3 Hours 14 Minutes 54 Seconds
• Average Speed: 123.294
• Cautions: 10 for 47 laps
• Lead Changes: 30
• Green Flag Passes: 3,724 (16.9 passes per green flag lap)

• Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet
• Race Winner: Ross Chastain
• Age: 31
• Team : No 1 - Kubota Chevrolet
• Owner: Justin Marks
• Crew Chief: Philip Surgen
• Ross Chastain won the Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet, his fifth victory in 217 Cup Series races
• This is his first victory and 12th top-10 finish in 2024
• This is his first victory and fourth top-10 finish in 12 races at Kansas Speedway
• William Byron (second) posted his eighth top-10 finish in 14 races at Kansas Speedway It is his 15th top-10 finish in 2024
• Martin Truex Jr (third) posted his 19th top-10 finish in 33 races at Kansas Speedway
• Zane Smith (10th) was the highest finishing rookie
• William Byron leads the point standings by 6 points over Christopher Bell