Breaking through the Round of 16, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series head to the Sunflower State for 400 miles at the fabled Kansas Speedway to open up the Round of 12.
A dozen drivers all look ahead to stake their claim for the Round of 8, but let’s see how each of them advanced to this round in the first place.
Last Week at Bristol…
Pole sitter Alex Bowman led the field to green on a sunny Saturday evening at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race.
It took all of five laps for the tension in the field to cause a caution with the Legacy Motor Club teammates Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek with Nemechek wrecking for most of a lap before finally looping it out of turn 2 right in front of Playoff driver Daniel Suárez (more on him later.)
The green flag returned to the starter’s stand on lap 11 with Bowman retaining the lead until Larson maneuvered by him on lap 33.
After this season’s chaotic, tire-marred spring race, the night race completely and utterly failed to deliver even a tenth of the excitement produced in March’s race.
From lap 33 onward, Kyle Larson paced the field for all but six of the remaining 467 laps en route to his fifth win of the season and second in the vaunted Bristol Night Race.
Bowman led the way after Larson with 34 laps led with 23XI teammates Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace snagging one lap apiece.
Speaking of the Arizonan, Bowman advanced early into the Round of 12 by accumulating 13 stage points to give him enough of a gap to the cutline that a last-place finish wouldn’t prevent him from advancing.
Reddick struggled all evening, his McDonalds Camry lacking the pace necessary to pass cars. Billy Scott implemented a desperation move by keeping Reddick out on the track on 100+ lap-old tires at the end of stage 2 to get critical stage points.
The Hail Mary worked with Reddick holding on for a surprising fourth in the second stage, giving him a wide enough gap that riding in the late teens was good enough to progress.
As for Wallace, a late-race charge from the 23XI racer earned him new career-highs for top-5s and top-10s in a season as he brought the #23 Toyota home a stellar third. Ahead of him was Chase Elliott whose runner-up finish solidified a relatively easy path to the next round.
Behind him were JGR teammates Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell. After jokingly blaming his adopted dog Lulu for his lack of performance, the Virginia native leveled up at the World’s Fastest Half-Mile, claiming 13 stage points that put him well above the cutline as the race wound to a close.
Bell locked himself into the Round of 12 with a third-place result in stage 1 while Ryan Blaney’s strong run tonight compounded with a titanic performance in Atlanta to continue his title defense.
Defying the odds were two Ford drivers that were projected to miss out on the Round of 12, Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric. Cindric coasted off of his strong Atlanta showing and mistakes from others at Watkins Glen as Briscoe’s great Glen run and solid race at Bristol kept him in the championship hunt.
The last two drivers to advance were William Byron and Daniel Suárez. Byron lost touch with the leaders after stage 1, but a pedestrian performance was more than effective on an off-night for the #24 team.
Suárez was not so lucky. Entering the night with a 36-point buffer to the cutline, all the Trackhouse driver needed to do was keep the wheels underneath him and finish the race, which he was able to do.
But my god, what a journey it was to an unremarkable run that ended four laps down in 31st.
The #99 team did not unload with speed, which was readily apparent in practice when they wound up 35th of 37 cars on the practice sheet. He qualified 35th as well and went down a lap early in the first stage despite robust efforts to stay ahead of Larson.
He spent much of stage 2 trying not to go another lap down, and Corey Lajoie cut him a break when he spun out Joey Logano on lap 243, allowing Suárez to get a lap back right before the second stage ended.
Following this, the Mexican made it his mission to pass as many cars as he could. Consisting of Erik Jones, Josh Berry, and Joey Logano, Suárez clung to those three cars like his life depended on it, and it might have led to the #99 team making a great final adjustment after the fifth and final caution flew for Corey Lajoie on lap 329.
Despite lacking pace all day, the Mexican driver managed to do two things right all night: keep the wheels on the car and derail Ty Gibbs’ night.
Gibbs came into the race six points above the cutline, yet a speeding penalty at the end of stage 1 buried the #54 team back in the pack. Gibbs threaded his way through the field and up into the top-15 by the end of stage 2.
Only racking up three stage points put the sophomore driver behind the 8-ball, and he never really recovered from the speeding penalty, rising all the way to eighth in the first half of the final 163-lap run to the finish.
Then, Gibbs met Suárez and got rather familiar with the Freeway Insurance Chevy’s rear bumper.
For the next 80 laps, the Trackhouse driver held up the ailing car of Ty Gibbs, causing the 20-year-old wunderkind to lose seven spots on the way to a 15th-place finish and a revoked ticket to the next round.
Joining him were Harrison Burton, Brad Keselowski, and Martin Truex Jr. Burton sat 20 points below the cutline when the race began, a number that ballooned when he pulled the Wood Brothers Ford behind the wall in stage 2 after a power steering issue.
Keselowski’s poor first round caught up with him as the RFK owner-driver relied on the race having the tire wear reminiscent of the spring race, resulting in the team completely missing the setup and finishing 26th.
Truex followed a path blazed by Ty Gibbs before him, speeding on entry to pit road during the race’s final pit stops and sending him to the back of the longest line for the infraction. After running top-3 all night, the #19 couldn’t find his way by anyone over the final 170 laps, coming home a disappointing 24th.
The News
As was reported last weekend at Bristol, Rick Ware Racing’s Justin Haley and Spire Motorsports’ Corey Lajoie will be swapping seats for the rest of the season in a rare “trade” between teams.
Spire signed Haley on for 2025 to succeed Lajoie in the #7 car, pairing him up with crew chief Rodney Childers. RWR remained non-committal to Lajoie past these last seven events, making the final run of the season an audition of sorts for the 33-year-old, second-generation driver.
Bubba Wallace reached an agreement with 23XI Racing on a multi-year contract extension to keep him with the burgeoning team for the foreseeable future.
Wallace’s two wins with the team as well as a top-10 points finish in 2023 bolstered his profile. Outside of a win, 2024 looks to be the 29-year-old’s best year to-date. Last week’s third-place result marked new season-highs in top-5s and top-10s, showing year-over-year improvement for one of the sport’s rising stars.
NASCAR announced an agreement with Ticketmaster on Thursday that will allow the ticketing giant to be the sole ticketing partner for the sport going forward.
Track History & Layout
After hosting its inaugural event in 2001, Kansas Speedway held a single race weekend for a decade until adding a spring race in 2011.
Jeff Gordon tacked on another victory in his 2001 championship campaign in the track’s debut by vending off challenges from Penske teammates Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman.
Despite winning again the following year and once more in 2014, Denny Hamlin surpassed Gordon with a fourth win at Kansas in the spring of 2023, outdueling Kyle Larson in a thrilling finish.
Kansas Speedway is a 1.5-mile trioval, featuring a curved front straightaway where the traditional racing surface is nothing more than a suggestion as drivers can be often seen diving down to the apron to cut off as much time and distance from their lap.
Drivers blend back onto the 10° banked racing surface briefly before barreling into turn 1. Banked at 17° on the bottom of the track, the turns at Kansas Speedway rise progressively to 20° near the outside wall, giving drivers countless line options to make up time through the corner.
Drivers rocket out of turn 2 and fly down the 2,207-foot backstretch until sending it into turns 3 & 4. Banked exactly like the other end of the track, drivers ride on the apron, against the fence, and everywhere in between to gain an advantage before leaking back onto the home straight to complete their lap.
Weather & Fast Facts
Though wet weather delayed the spring race until later in the day, the fall race looks to have clear skies for Sunday afternoon with a projected high of 79°F under partly cloudy conditions.
Given Kansas’ progressive banking, the race should see lots of passing as well as comers-and-goers this weekend due to rising track temperatures taking away grip.
The average of the last 10 Kansas fall races look like this: 7 cautions for 36 caution laps, 18 lead changes, 2,707 green-flag passes (or 11.7 passes per green-flag lap), and an average lap of last caution falling around lap 228.
Because of that, only 3 of the last 10 Kansas fall races ended with an Overtime period, but one of those instances was last year’s race where Denny Hamlin’s titanic performance was wiped away by a late caution, giving Tyler Reddick the opportunity to make a daring three-wide move to take the victory.
Sunday’s race will be broadcast on the USA Network and Peacock starting at 3pm Eastern time for 400 miles over 267 scheduled laps spread out over three stages, breaking at laps 80-165-267.
With the green flag coming out around 3pm Eastern time, it’s important to note that the this race lasts about three hours on average, so try not to make any plans until after 6:30 if you intend to see the end, just to be safe.
The Odds
For long-time readers of the NASCAR Almanac, let me know if you’ve heard this one before:
Kyle Larson (+330) leads the betting favorites for Kansas, which makes sense considering he is the most recent winner at the circuit. Larson’s last-lap hustle allowed him to eke out the narrowest victory in NASCAR history over Chris Buescher back in the spring.
That was Larson’s second win at Kansas since hopping behind the wheel of one of Rick Hendrick’s Chevys, and after adding his second Bristol Night Race sword to his collection, Larson looks to repeat his 2021 heroics by landing a berth to the Round of 12 early with a win in the Sunflower State.
Right behind Larson is none other than Denny Hamlin (+450). Already the all-time wins leader at the young intermediate facility, Hamlin’s seasoned driving style lends itself well to Kansas’ worn-out asphalt, leading to an impeccable record in the NextGen era where he has failed to finish worse than fifth.
Hamlin appeared to have the spring race in the bag with five laps to go until Kyle Busch spun out while running in the top-5, sending the race into Overtime where he lost the lead and settled for fifth. Hamlin wants to continue the course correction from Bristol and extend his wins record while the #11 team’s iron is still hot.
Last season’s fall race winner Tyler Reddick (+700) slots in at third on the list of betting favorites presented by his sponsor for this weekend, DraftKings. The Californian rolls his way into KC looking for his third win of 2024, but he’ll need to log a better performance than the spring where he came home a pedestrian 20th.
The regular season champion flashed immense speed at Michigan last month where he snatched his second win of the year, and at a track where maintaining momentum comes at a premium, keep your eyes on the former dirt late model star to compete for a victory.
As for non-Playoff drivers, I’ve got my sights set on Bubba Wallace (+1800) and Chris Buescher (+1800). A former winner here, Wallace scored three straight top-10s here to open up the NextGen era, and after blowing a tire while in second last fall, he looks to rebound from his poor fortunes.
Buescher came a matter of centimeters away from being a winner at Kansas, centimeters away from being in the Playoffs and getting his second win of 2024 at Watkins Glen, advancing him to the Round of 12. It is possible we see a dominant performance from the 2016 Cup Series rookie of the year.
Writer’s Pick
Last week, I got my third victory of 2024 as I rode my Kyle Larson selection all the way to victory lane. Granted, I couldn’t have possibly predicted that he would dominate the race, but nevertheless.
This week’s writer’s pick will be Ryan Blaney (+1200). The defending series champion returns to the site of his first career Cup Series start all the way back in 2014. Much has changed since then, but that includes Blaney’s performance at this previously reliable intermediate.
Kansas is the site of Blaney’s first career pole all the way back in 2017 when he raced for the Wood Brothers. Over the Penske pilot’s first eight races in Kansas City, he finished outside the top-10 three times alongside five finishes of seventh or better.
Knowing that a win could make these next few weeks much more relaxing, I suspect Ryan Blaney and crew chief Jonathan Hassler will bring a great car and capitalize on a great day with a victory.
(Top Photo Credit: Logan Riely/Getty Images)
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