Kansas Speedway has spent the last few years turning the white flag into a warning.
Kyle Larson took it this spring with the lead ... and Tyler Reddick held the checkered flag moments later.
Last fall, Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace were battling for the victory on the final lap when contact opened the door for Chase Elliott to sweep past both of them. And in May 2024, Larson edged Chris Buescher by 0.001 seconds -- the closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history.
There's a reason Racing Insights has started referring to the recent trend as "Krazy Kansas" -- because it's been (contribution to the NASCAR Swear Jar)-ing nuts.
The winning pass has come in the final two laps in five of the last seven Kansas races, including four last-lap passes. Four of the last six have gone to NASCAR Overtime, too. Meanwhile, the driver who led the most laps has won just once in the last eight trips to the 1.5-mile track. Sometimes, it's better to be positioned than dominant.
That unpredictability arrives Sunday (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at an especially interesting moment in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.
RELATED: Full Kansas schedule | Cup Series standings
Three races into the 10-race championship run, the field has already started to stretch out a bit. Larson left Saturday night's Bristol Motor Speedway barn burner with a one-point advantage over Hamlin for his first points lead of the season, while race winner Joey Logano sits just 16 points back and Christopher Bell 17 behind. From there, the gaps grow quickly.
Ty Gibbs (-42) and Ryan Blaney (-52) remain within striking distance, but Reddick is seventh at 61 points back and very much trending the wrong way. Carson Hocevar (-85) follows, with Chase Briscoe (-87), Wallace (-92), Austin Cindric (-116), Elliott (-117), Byron (-121), Ryan Preece (-124), Buescher (-124) and Daniel Suárez (-134) rounding out the Chase field. Every driver from eighth through 16th is already more than a full race’s worth of points behind Larson.
The problem for the leaders?
Kansas might be exactly where several of those trailing contenders are best positioned to turn things around.
Start with Reddick, whose deficit grew by 19 points at Bristol. Nobody in this group has to imagine what a Kansas surge might look like -- he provided the most recent example.
Reddick won here in April after Larson led at the white flag, making the winning pass between Turns 3 and 4 on the final lap. It was Reddick’s second Kansas victory in six races and remains (somewhat shockingly) the most recent of his five wins this season.
Toyota stablemate Briscoe has an equally compelling reason to welcome Kansas after Bristol dropped him from 59 points back to 87.
Since joining Joe Gibbs Racing, Briscoe has finished fourth or better in all three of his Kansas starts, including a third-place result this spring after taking four tires before overtime and charging through the field. He also won the most recent 1.5-mile race at Chicagoland and has finished fourth or better in seven of his 12 starts on traditional 1.5-mile tracks with JGR. They're quickly becoming his bread and butter, with some Victory Lane BBQ potentially on the menu Sunday.
Wallace, meanwhile, already owns a Kansas win from 2022 and has four top-five finishes in his last eight races here. He has also finished in the top 10 in four of the last five races on 1.5-mile tracks. And 23XI Racing as an organization has turned Kansas into one of its signature venues, winning four of the last nine races at the venerable Midwestern track with three different drivers and leading in eight of those nine events.
Then there is Elliott, whose current form makes his Kansas history stand out even more -- and underscores why it's imperative for the No. 9 to convert if he's going to save his season.
Elliott has just one top-five finish and two top 10s over his last 18 races, but Kansas has consistently been one of his best tracks. He won this race last September, owns two victories here overall and has finished in the top 10 in six of his last seven Kansas starts. His 9.81 career average finish there is also the best among drivers with at least six starts. This is about as tailor-made a bounce-back opportunity as he could hope for right now.
But his teammate Byron might be even more intriguing.
His 121-point deficit makes him look increasingly removed from the championship picture, but his results on traditional 1.5-mile tracks say something very different. Byron and Hamlin are the only drivers to finish in the top 10 in all five such races this season. Byron has gone third, seventh, eighth, ninth and fourth, producing a 6.2 average finish that trails only Hamlin’s 2.6.
This is the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, after all -- if there's a track where it can start dragging itself back into the championship picture, Kansas fits the profile.
[caption id="attachment_526661" align="aligncenter" width="1300"]Even Buescher, 124 points behind, has firsthand knowledge of how close Kansas can come to changing everything for a driver. His runner-up finish to Larson here in May 2024 will certainly be mentioned and you'll likely see the replay (at least once) this weekend.
For all its recent chaos, however, Kansas has not become random.
No driver has earned a first career Cup victory at Kansas in any of its 41 races, the most races among active tracks that have never produced a first-time winner. Plus, the last 30 Kansas winners all entered with at least 100 previous Cup starts. That distinction matters.
The recent Kansas formula has not necessarily been about an unlikely driver stumbling into Victory Lane. Instead, it's been about proven contenders staying close enough to capitalize when the race changes in the closing laps. Veteran savvy, if you will.
Reddick did it in April. Elliott did it last fall. Larson did it by literal inches in 2024.
And in this version of The Chase, the payoff for doing so can be enormous. Bell, Larson and Logano each scored 73 points in winning the first three Chase races, tied for the second-most points scored in any Cup race this season. Winning in the postseason has clearly been the difference-maker, even though the win-and-advance playoff days are long gone.
For Reddick, Briscoe, Wallace, Elliott, Byron and the rest of the Chase’s back half, merely running well will very likely not result in a title. The gaps have grown too large, too quickly.
Thankfully for them, Kansas has shown a repeated willingness to offer something more dramatic and open a window of opportunity for whoever is positioned to take it. The next three races, all 1.5-mile venues, may ultimately bring clarity to the championship picture.
But "Krazy Kansas" gets the next chance to make a mess of it.