KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Justin Allgaier’s finish in 13th place Saturday at Kansas Speedway left him with three things: bittersweet emotions, some big-picture solace and four fresh Goodyear tires his team never got the chance to use.
Allgaier’s Saturday drive in the Kansas Lottery 300 — the middle race in the Xfinity Series Playoffs’ opening Round of 12 — could have been one for the ages, a max-points performance that would have provided a victorious high note to career start No. 499. Instead, Allgaier and his No. 7 JR Motorsports team found the points and comfort they needed to advance to the postseason’s next round, a key weekend objective that he and crew chief Jim Pohlman emphasized in the days heading into the 300-miler.
The overly sufficient points margin provides Allgaier a worry-free stop next week in the Round of 12 finale at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, but it also provided a small measure of heartache for what could’ve materialized.
“I mean, it’s both, right?” Allgaier said, noting his midweek meeting in Pohlman’s office. “… If we feel like we’re going to win the race, go win the race, right, but we also needed to be mindful of the points. We’ve gone to the (Charlotte) Roval I don’t know how many years the last handful, and you’re racing your guts out just to try to make it in the next round, and we had the luxury of not having to do that. So those are big deals for me, but it’s disappointing.”
Allgaier’s Saturday story was one of smooth sledding in the early portions and bumpier slopes in the second half. The 39-year-old driver led 71 of the first 90 laps to sweep the stage wins, gathering more of the championship points that would buoy his Round of 8 aims.
A sluggish pit stop during the Stage 2 break, however, knocked him back to sixth in the running order. Pohlman’s pep talk over the radio took a mismatched page from the most famous movie set in Kansas, as he gave his driver a confidence boost with a reminder to be patient as well: “Put those little red heels together there, Toto.”
Allgaier worked back up to fourth, driving on after a slight brush of the outside retaining wall on the 124th of 200 laps. But his big move arrived with a pivotal decision by Pohlman to stay out during a caution period that flew with 45 laps left, when Nick Sanchez and Justin Bonsignore came together exiting Turn 2. Only the No. 41 Haas Factory Team group for fellow playoff driver Sam Mayer, who eventually finished 16th, was on the same strategy.
The crew chief was counting on another yellow flag, which would have given the No. 7 team an opportunity to use that last set of tires, reaping the benefit of a newfound grip advantage over the teams that had only scuffed-in sets as an option. That caution never came, and Brandon Jones eased to his second win of the year.
“The falloff is at one second in 10 laps, so all we needed was anytime after (Lap) 172, we needed a caution and we would have been sitting real pretty there,” Pohlman told NASCAR.com. “Them guys had some scuffs laying, and they probably would have pitted and we still would have had to go around them, but that’s a lot of falloff to have to deal with on sticker tires that we would have had laying, I think us and the 41 were still in the right position. Unfortunately, the caution just didn’t fall. For us, the points were the big thing, right? I knew after the first two stages that as long as we finished in the top 15, we were probably locked, so I felt confident about making that right decision there.
“But yeah, it sucks because we had a really hot rod and really good car and probably should have won the race, or should have been in contention to win the race. But hey, that’s what they paid me to do.”
Pohlman struck an apologetic tone on the No. 7 radio during the cool-down lap, but reiterated that he’d have elected to use the same strategy given the chance for a do-over. Allgaier responded that he wasn’t upset at the pit-box call, but rued the green-flag run to the finish that handcuffed them. Advancing in the playoffs helped offset that blow as Allgaier joined Jones and points leader and JRM teammate Connor Zilisch in the next round.
“When we lost the track position there at the end of Stage 2, it was tough because I felt like our strength was being out front, and we made an adjustment on the car, too, that just didn’t quite go with where we wanted to go,” Allgaier said. “But I’m not disappointed in the call. Jim Pohlman is probably one of the few crew chiefs on pit road that is really willing to be aggressive and to make good calls on pit road, and sometimes they work for you, and sometimes they don’t. We see it all the time on the Cup side here, on the Xfinity side and today just wasn’t our day.”
Total team efforts on the table for Round of 12 showdown
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The dozen drivers who still carry championship hopes represent five organizations left standing in the Cup Series Playoffs picture. For each one, their overall objectives have strong similarities, but their situations slightly vary.
Those hopes get a bread-and-butter intermediate-track test at Kansas Speedway in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). The venue — a fall fixture that’s hosted a playoff event ever since the 10-race format’s debut in 2004 — has been prone to postseason heartache, a source of multi-groove racing and historically close finishes, and a domination haven in recent years for Kyle Larson.
All five teams with remaining championship ambitions have the obvious goals — win, survive, advance — in mind for this weekend, for the rest of the Round of 12 and for the balance of the playoffs. The nuances bear looking into in this team-by-team motto tracker and outlook meter.
Team Penske:Pour it on. The only organization with a driver who’s already secured safe passage into the next round is Roger Penske’s. Ryan Blaney secured that automatic berth with a convincing win last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The next two boxes for the Penske group to check involve defending Cup champ Joey Logano and teammate Austin Cindric, who are on opposite sides of the playoff bubble.
Ford hasn’t won here since the fall of 2020, an occasion that marked the most recent of Logano’s three Kansas victories, but Team Penske typically finds stride when playoff times arrive. That seasonal surge would help sustain Logano (plus-24 to the provisional cutline) and could lift Cindric, who is minus-19 and has the worst average finish at Kansas (23.9) among the remaining playoff drivers in the Next Gen era. Specific to this weekend, the organization will need to find the right balance with a new Goodyear tire setup. Both Blaney’s No. 12 and Logano’s No. 22 had significant issues in practice, and Cindric brushed the wall during his qualifying run.
Hendrick Motorsports: Play to your strengths. Larson has won twice and led 498 laps in the last seven Kansas races, notching top-five finishes in five of those seven. Last year’s playoff race here was an outlier, a 26th-place effort hampered by a flat tire and wall scrub just 20 laps in, but he’s projected to add to his win total in the latest Racing Insights projections.
William Byron and Chase Elliott — Larson’s playoff-eligible teammates — are each projected for top 10s or better in Sunday’s race, though neither of them have cracked the code to winning here with the Next Gen car. Byron came closest in this race last year with a runner-up finish, and Elliott ran third in the spring of 2024. All three are double digits above the provisional elimination line — Byron plus-47, Larson plus-41 and Elliott plus-14.
Joe Gibbs Racing: Stay in contact, but not like that. The fallout from last weekend’s teammate tangle between playoff-eligible Denny Hamlin and the postseason-non-grata Ty Gibbs has lingered ever since the Cup Series haulers packed up in New Hampshire and headed to the midwest this week. The rosy story arc of a JGR sweep through the Round of 16 has teetered with Team Penske’s awakening, and Kansas feels like a ripe place to regroup.
“If you’re talking about Kansas, I think we have everything we need,” said Chris Gabehart, JGR’s competition director. “This has been a really good track for us for a long time. So I’m actually really excited about the weekend and more focused on execution than speed. But execution is no small part of it, and you certainly don’t want to make your execution more difficult, which is something that we didn’t do a great job of last week as a company, and those are the types of things that we tried to talk through this week, and I think the drivers get it.”
Hamlin is a four-time Kansas winner who most recently prevailed here in the spring of 2023. Bell lacks a Kansas win but was the runner-up here last May and has four pole-position starts. Both have some buffer to work with above the elimination line, with Bell plus-29 and Hamlin plus-27. It’s their newest teammate Chase Briscoe, who has less cushion at plus-12 but won the pole Saturday and ran fourth here in the spring in his only Kansas start with JGR.
Trackhouse Racing: Fly solo and defend. The lone driver left holding the Trackhouse banner in the playoffs is Chastain, who is also the defending race winner. The 32-year-old driver recently cited his Kansas victory last September as proof of what his No. 1 Chevrolet team was capable of. Finding that level of sustaining speed, however, has been challenging for the whole Trackhouse outfit.
Chastain sits 12 points below the bubble, currently shown as the first driver out on the provisional playoff line. If a Kansas repeat doesn’t find its fruition Sunday, he’ll be left to fight off elimination at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, where he’s expected to lean heavily on the expertise of teammate and road-racing virtuoso Shane van Gisbergen.
23XI Racing: Rekindle the magic. Kansas Speedway was once regarded as a 23XI stronghold, a place where the team won three out of four from 2022-23 with three different drivers. Bubba Wallace was on that list of winners alongside teammates Kurt Busch and Tyler Reddick, and he’s also taken note of the declining results in years since. Not helping matters, last weekend’s outing at New Hampshire, where no 23XI cars finished among the top 20.
Reddick’s average finish in the last three Kansas races is 20.7, with Wallace’s 22.3. Reversing that trend and regaining some Kansas confidence have some connective urgency. Both drivers are at the bottom of the playoff standings with Reddick 23 points back of the elimination barrier and Wallace minus-27. This week’s motivation from team co-owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin was fairly straightforward. “Just basically get back on the horse,” Wallace said Saturday at Kansas. “You know, one bad week isn’t going to deter us from our destiny, our path this season. So we’re still excited, still optimistic. A lot of people are looking forward to running this whole thing out to get to Phoenix and racing for a championship. So we’ve just got to work really hard and capitalize on opportunities.”
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
As simplistic as it would sound for Cliff Daniels to just unload the No. 5 Chevrolet that Kyle Larson drove to victory here four and a half months ago with a carbon-copy setup, the veteran Hendrick Motorsports crew chief says it’s not that easy. Larson led 221 of the 267 laps back in May, but the circuit’s return trip to Kansas presents some fresh wrinkles — new right-side Goodyear rubber included.
“Certainly nice to have the notes from the spring that we can look at — and other intermediates as well,” Daniels told NASCAR.com. “I mean, sometimes it’s valuable to learn what not to do as it is valuable to learn what to do. So we’ve gone to work. Nothing greatly different than what we’ve had before, but we’ve had to push a couple areas just to try to get a little bit better. So with a different right-side tire, that’s going to be a little different variable. The temps are going to be up, so grip will certainly be a thing, and that’s kind of been our outlook, just trying to make sure we’re getting better.”
The new right-side tire construction is built to provide additional durability, and Goodyear officials indicated the same setup will be used in two weeks at the similar 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The additional sturdiness is intended to give crew chiefs more flexibility on air-pressure adjustments, something Daniels says the team has studied “the best that we can.”
Speaking in the Saturday morning hours before practice, Daniels said he expected the the 25-minute session to “be educational and hopefully set us up to have a more complete picture of what we need going into (Sunday), and still, even with that, the track is going to evolve as the race goes along, and I’m sure we’ll be tinkering with air pressure and balance of our car throughout the race like normal. So just got to take it all in and hopefully make the right decisions at the right time.”
Chasing that sweet spot on air pressure isn’t without its challenges. Team Penske discovered that in Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions, encountering problems on the Fords driven by playoff standings leader Ryan Blaney and defending Cup champion Joey Logano.
“The intent is it’s more durable, so the compounds and all that stuff should be very comparable. So I don’t expect to see a big lap-time difference with it, but it’s more about the durability, and yes, how can we push the air pressure,” said Billy Scott, crew chief for Tyler Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. “It’s always the big question, and we see failures here often, but you really don’t know where you’re at on that until you experience it yourself, or at least have a teammate get far enough that you start to have durability be a concern.”
Don’t expect a breakthrough. Sunday’s 400-miler will mark Kansas Speedway’s 40th Cup Series race. In the previous 39, however, the track has not produced a first-time Cup winner — the largest void of any circuit currently on the Cup Series schedule.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
ALEX BOWMAN. Falling from playoff eligibility may have shifted the 32-year-old driver slightly off the radar, but his record at Kansas Speedway is worth a strong look. Bowman has top-10 finishes in each of the last four races at the 1.5-mile track, and his average finish (7.0) during that span is second-best only to Christopher Bell’s 5.8. Bowman has 11 top 10s in his career here, his most at any track on the schedule. | See Bowman’s projected finishing position
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
Boy, what a difference one week makes. After stomping the field at New Hampshire last weekend, Paul Wolfe’s fear of Kansas being a struggle for Team Penske has turned to reality with a horrendous performance on Saturday. With Ryan Blaney’s wreck in the opening minutes of the second group of practice, followed by Joey Logano’s flat tire later in the session, assessing the long-run pace of the field is more challenging than most weeks considering multiple cycles on the same set of tires. With their recent Kansas dominance, it’s no surprise that Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin appeared to be among the best cars in the field. No changes to my lineup this weekend, though I flirted with replacing Alex Bowman for either Bubba Wallace or William Byron.
Lineup: Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain Garage: Alex Bowman
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
•NASCAR at Kansas: Key info, qualifying reports and more from doubleheader weekend | Read more • Racing Insights: Hendrick’s hopes ride high in projected Kansas results | Read more
• Bubble Watch: Inside the playoff subplots for the Round of 12 | Read more • At-track photos: Trackside sights, scenes from the Sunflower State | View gallery
• Memorable moments: Rich history of racing through the years in KC | Read more • Turning Point to Kansas: After Toyota’s first-round sweep, automaker balance tilts | Read more • Neil Paine: Analysis leans toward a Kyle Larson upswing in Kansas | Read more
• Playoff Pulse: Who’s hot, who’s not ahead of Kansas | Read more
• Power Rankings: Sizing up where playoff drivers stand | This week’s ranks
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — With a flawlessly executed race from start to finish, Brandon Jones preserved his bragging rights at Kansas Speedway, winning Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs event.
The only driver in the field to have won a previous Xfinity race at the 1.5-mile intermediate track, Jones pulled away during the final 38-lap green-flag run and beat runner-up rookie sensation Connor Zilisch to the finish line by 2.787 seconds.
With the victory, his second of the season, his third at Kansas and the seventh of his career, Jones claimed a berth in the Round of 8. Zilisch and defending series champion Justin Allgaier also advanced to the next round on points.
“That was exactly like how we needed that to go down,” said Jones, who started from the pole, led 54 of 200 laps and finished second in each of the first two stages. “Two really solid stages — no mistakes. The entire day was so well executed. That’s probably by far in my career my most well-executed race.
“I’m so proud of these guys (his No.20 Joe Gibbs Racing team). We worked so hard all week to get here and put a race like this together.”
Allgaier and Sam Mayer stayed out on 15-lap older tires during the fourth and final caution of the afternoon, hoping for a subsequent caution that would allow them to use their final set of Goodyears. But the caution never came, and Allgaier and Mayer finished 13th and 16th, respectively.
Allgaier, who won the first two stages and led a race-high 79 laps, didn’t have a problem with crew chief Jim Pohlman’s strategic call.
“They work for you sometimes, they don’t some other times,” Allgaier said. “Disappointed … our (No. 7 JR Motorsports) Chevrolet was really good.”
Though the handling of his No. 88 Chevrolet wasn’t precisely to his liking, Zilisch scored his 16th straight top-five result, breaking a tie with Sam Ard (1983) for the series record.
“I didn’t feel like our car was winning-capable, except at a point there in Stage 3, I thought we had a chance at it,” said Zilisch, who led 42 laps. “We’ll look at it and see what we could have done better. We were just kind of throwing Hail Marys at it all day and trying to make one stick — but it didn’t stick.”
Austin Hill finished third, followed by fellow playoff drivers Sammy Smith, Sheldon Creed, Taylor Gray, Jesse Love and Nick Sanchez.
Next Saturday’s final Round of 12 race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval has the makings of an intense battle for the final positions in the Round of 8. Love, the last driver above the current elimination line, leads Sanchez by five points, Hill by seven, Harrison Burton (20th Saturday after starting from the rear) by eight and Smith by 14.
Mayer, highest in the standings of the drivers not yet locked into the Round of 8, has a 38-point cushion entering the final event in the round, the Blue Cross NC 250 next Saturday (5 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NOTE: Inspection was completed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series garage with no issues, confirming Jones as the winner. The No. 48 Chevrolet of Nick Sanchez had one lug nut not safe and secure, likely resulting in a monetary fine for the crew chief.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Don’t blame 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick if he’s nostalgic about his team’s past performance at Kansas Speedway.
In 2022, when NASCAR transitioned to the Gen 7 car in the NASCAR Cup Series, 23XI swept the two Kansas events, with Kurt Busch winning in the spring and Bubba Wallace in the fall.
After Joe Gibbs Racing driver (and 23XI co-owner) Denny Hamlin triumphed in the spring race of 2023, Reddick put 23XI in Victory Lane for the third time in four races and Toyota for the fourth straight time.
Since then, Chevrolet drivers — Kyle Larson in particular — have dominated at the track. At 23 points below the current elimination line and 11th of the 12 postseason contenders chasing a spot in the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Playoffs, Reddick needs a turnaround on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
“We had a stretch here where it was a 23XI Toyota or a Toyota car in general, we had a pretty good record here to be able to win races,” Reddick said. “I look at the last two or three times we’ve been here; we’ve been missing a little bit of something.
“The car changes, the Goodyear tires change, so naturally you’ve got to keep up with it. I think it’s fair to be nervous. There’s a lot that weighs on this weekend that it’s super important for us to either win or run top five all day and score a lot of points.”
The return to a 1.5-mile speedway for the first time since the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte in May is cause for optimism, as far as Reddick is concerned.
“You look at other mile and-a-half tracks this year, and we’ve brought cars capable of winning races at those tracks,” Reddick said. “It’s been since Charlotte Motor Speedway (that) we’ve had a true mile and-a-half race, so there’s been a lot of time for things to change, for people to catch up and people to fall behind.
“I think that just adds to the nerves of the weekend to see how we perform when we get to the race track.”
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — For the last two seasons, Kyle Busch has had the consistency of shot caller Randall Burnett atop the pit box at Richard Childress Racing. However, starting in 2026, that duo will be no more as Burnett will transition over to Trackhouse Racing and become the new crew chief for rising star Connor Zilisch.
“I’m excited about my opportunity over there, and you know, obviously, something’s got to change on this 8 car,” Burnett told NASCAR.com. “We haven’t been performing the way we needed to. I think everybody needs a fresh start. I got a really good opportunity with where I’m going. Obviously, Connor’s a great young talent. I miss working with the younger guys. So, you know, just kind of all worked out.”
Busch and Burnett got off to a promising start, scoring three wins and tallying 17 top 10s in their first year as a tandem. Since then, it’s been a roller coaster of success as Busch is in the midst of the longest winless streak in his Cup career (87 races) and has flirted with ending that streak several times, but has been through countless frustrating weekends where performance isn’t there.
“We’ve had the opportunity to win a lot more, and we just had some things slip through our fingers, and it’s unfortunate, and feel like this team has earned and deserves more wins than we got. We just haven’t finished the deal off,” Burnett added. “Really grateful for my time with Kyle. I think I’m a better crew chief for being with him and learning his process and learning through the things that he goes through, obviously, first ballot Hall of Famer in this deal, and so, you know, to be able to work with him the past couple years has been great, and I’ll be grateful for that opportunity.”
Looking at Burnett’s next driver, Zilisch has taken the Xfinity Series by storm, scoring nine wins in his rookie season and becoming the youngest driver to reach ten victories at the secondary level two weeks ago at Gateway.
The last time Burnett worked closely on developing a young driver was Tyler Reddick in 2019, winning six races and an Xfinity Series championship before making the jump together to the Cup level a year later and winning three races in 2022. Burnett is excited to once again work with a rising prospect and looks to help Zilisch achieve his full potential at NASCAR’s highest level.
“I think he’s going to have a lot to learn in the Cup Series,” Burnett said. “Obviously, the races are longer. These cars definitely race a little different than what he’s used to on the Xfinity side right now, and the talent level over here is incredible, you know what I mean. I think he’ll have a pretty steep learning curve when he gets over here, but I want to help guide him with that and try to coach him up. Obviously, the kid’s got an immense amount of talent — there’s no question about that. So it’s just going to be taking that and harnessing it and trying to get the wins and the finishes he deserves over here, and we’re going to work hard on that this winter.”
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Joe Gibbs Racing personnel met this week to sort through last weekend’s intra-team dust-up between Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs. Those conversations were fruitful, Hamlin said, though he and the rest of the organization were tight-lipped about the full context.
“Yeah, I think they’re in a good place,” Hamlin said about where the team left things after racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “You know, we had some meetings this week. I thought they were all productive meetings, but the guts of that are obviously going to need to be confidential.”
The talk of the NASCAR Cup Series garage continued into Saturday’s prep day at Kansas Speedway, site of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), the middle race in the playoffs’ Round of 12. The event provides an opportunity for the remaining dozen postseason hopefuls to build their momentum, but it’s also a moment for the JGR group that swept the playoffs’ opening round to reset and change the narrative.
At New Hampshire, when playoff-eligible Hamlin initiated contact with Gibbs, who did not make the postseason field, debate raged about whether teammates on opposite ends of the playoff picture should contest spots amongst themselves with more consideration. Hamlin indicated in his podcast this week that he hoped team management would intercede to reach some resolution for on-track conduct. Now it’s a matter, JGR team management said, of carrying out what was discussed — this weekend and in the postseason weeks ahead.
“It was just what I said last week,” said Chris Gabehart, JGR’s competition director. “Every now and then when you compete towards the front at a high level, you’ve got to go over these things and understand that everybody’s racing for something, and everybody’s got to be heard, and then we’ve got to try to come to a resolution on ‘how do we how do we race moving forward?’ And that’s exactly what happened. I mean, I’m not going to get into any of the details, and frankly, actions speak louder than words, right? That’s true of anyone in here, not just JGR drivers. So, got to focus on Kansas and know that we did our part this week, and everybody said their piece, and we’ll move on from there.”
Gibbs’ abbreviated attempt to comment on the matter Saturday was cut off after Cup Series qualifying, when he was whisked away by a waiting golf cart. In this week’s closed-door meetings, Hamlin said, each of the four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers could weigh in. “All the drivers had an opportunity to speak and try to come up with a plan,” Hamlin said, “and I think we did our best to come up with one. That’s it. That’s all I have.”
JGR’s Christopher Bell had at least indirect involvement in the Hamlin-Gibbs skirmish, as he had to take evasive action in his No. 20 Toyota to avoid the wreck of Gibbs’ No. 54 against the outer retaining wall. Bell said he had a premonition that contact between the two was pending, so he eased up on the throttle on corner entry, then swept low as he flew blind through the smoke.
“I think it’s definitely fair to say that a line was crossed and that was bad,” said Bell, who was the top JGR finisher in sixth place last week at New Hampshire. “We don’t need to get any teammates wrecked. Hopefully we do better moving forward, and I think that’s the goal for us to race each other better moving forward.”
Crossing the line? A regretful Hamlin didn’t disagree.
“I mean, certainly, absolutely. I think that I definitely got hotter under the collar,” Hamlin said. “It went too far on my end, and certainly there’s things that I wish I could have done a little differently.”
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Chase Briscoe returned to his pole-winning ways on Saturday at Kansas Speedway, earning his series-best seventh Busch Light Pole Award of the season for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
The only driver to exceed 180 mph at the 1.5-mile intermediate speedway, Briscoe turned a lap in 29.987 seconds (180.078 mph) to edge Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin (179.474 mph) for the top starting spot in the second Round of 12 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs race by 0.101 seconds.
With Christopher Bell qualifying fifth at 179.015 mph, JGR playoff drivers claimed three of the top five starting spots. Hendrick Motorsports playoff drivers Kyle Larson (179.396 mph) and Chase Elliott (179.063 mph) qualified third and fourth, respectively, in their Chevrolets.
The pole was Briscoe’s first at Kansas and the ninth of his career. What surprised the driver of the No. 19 Toyota was a slow-down in qualifying speeds from May of this year, when Larson earned the top spot on the grid with a lap at 183.730 mph.
“This time around, not a single car in the field ran wide-open through (Turns) 1 and 2,” said Briscoe, who hadn’t won a pole since early August at Iowa Speedway. “Everything we had prepped for was kind of totally opposite from what we just did there.
“I thought my team did a really good job of making adjustments for the slower pace and everything that goes into that.”
Non-playoff driver Carson Hocevar qualified sixth, with playoff drivers Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain claiming the seventh and ninth spots, respectively. Ty Gibbs was eighth fastest, and Erik Jones completed the top 10, giving Toyota drivers six of the top 10 starting positions.
Playoff drivers William Byron and Tyler Reddick will start 11th and 12th. Non-playoff driver Josh Berry was 13th in the fastest Ford.
The qualifying session and the practice that preceded it were particularly challenging for Team Penske playoff drivers Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Austin Cindric. Blaney, already locked into the Round of 8 with his victory last Sunday at New Hampshire, had a right-rear tire issue in practice and crashed into the outside wall.
Blaney did not post a qualifying lap and will start 37th on Sunday. Logano, the defending series champion, also suffered a problem with the new right-side tire in practice and will start 35th.
“I just felt it starting to feel funky through (Turns) 3 and 4,” said Logano, who starts the race 24 points above the cutline for the Round of 8. “It just didn’t feel right (in practice), so I took it a little safe than sorry and lifted off in the corner, which is when it really came apart.
“I’m glad I caught it there. I got a little lucky, but overall, it should be OK with the Shell/Pennzoil Mustang. We’ll put four tires on it, make some adjustments, cross our fingers and hope she runs good.”
Cindric scraped the outside wall on his qualifying lap and will start 26th. Cindric comes to Kansas 19 points below the elimination line for the next round.
Buescher paces Kansas practice
RFK Racing driver Chris Buescher was quickest in Saturday’s practice session, turning a lap of 176.056 mph as the fastest time among both groups. Each group received 25 minutes of time on track.
Zane Smith was second fastest at 175.695 mph while Denny Hamlin was third at 175.684 mph, quickest among Group 2 drivers. Bubba Wallace (175.661 mph) and John Hunter Nemechek (175.536 mph) completed the top five, while Erik Jones, Justin Haley, Chase Briscoe, Todd Gilliland and Ty Dillon rounded out the top 10.
KANSAS CITY, Kan — Not too long ago, Kyle Larson was ringing the victory bell at Kansas Speedway for the second time in three races at the Midwestern track. The triumphant sounds are a faint noise now, however, as that day still stands as Larson’s most recent victory, some four months ago.
Coming back to a track like Kansas is special, given that Larson is the only repeat winner over the last 10 races here and has statistically set the standard since joining Hendrick Motorsports, proven by the fact he ranks second on the track’s all-time laps led list with 924 and 760 of those have come since 2021.
“I haven’t won a race since this one, and really haven’t been that consistently good since this race earlier this year,” Larson said before Saturday’s practice. “It’d be nice to get a win, but we’ve been working extremely hard the last few months to get back to the point of where we were leading a bunch of laps and winning stages, and I feel like we’ve learned a lot along the way. I hope we can kind of put that all in motion and have a good day.”
Being up front at intermediates is Larson’s bread and butter; not only has he scored the most points on 1.5-mile tracks this year among playoff drivers, but he also owns six wins at this style of racing in the Next Gen era.
Since that May triumph, both Larson and his crew chief, Cliff Daniels, were open about the fact that their group has had to persevere not only through an uncharacteristic summer slump and a trying Round of 16 with no top 10s, but personal challenges off-track as well.
“I hope someday we get to tell the story of the five team this year,” Daniels said. “What a lot of people don’t know is a lot of the behind-the-scenes of what we’ve faced on the personal side, without getting into all the details, we’ve had guys get sick. We’ve had scares with babies. We’ve had marriage, we’ve had divorce, we’ve literally had a teammate pass away this year.
“Our focus, of course, is always to do our job and to perform, but more than ever, this year has challenged me to make sure that I’m there for the team, supporting them personally the way they need to be supported, so that we can go do our jobs professionally.”
Larson echoed a similar sentiment, with tension ramping up every week in the postseason, the No. 5 wheelman is committed to not letting his crew dwell on negatives and wants to lead by example when adversity strikes.
“I think just for me, you know, just staying positive and motivated and not letting team members see you down or not motivated, so trying to just keep putting in my best effort every week, and, you know, letting them know that we have a shot to run well, every week is always good.”
Last week was a sign that Larson and Co. are starting to get back in the groove of being an up-front contender regularly. Larson scored a seventh-place finish at New Hampshire, a track Hendrick had made strides on to be more prepared for flat tracks like Phoenix. It was the kind of step forward that could turn into a bigger push and remind the field why he entered as the No. 1 seed.
The timing is right for a return to form after weeks of watching Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske set the tone. Back in its all white uniforms — a look saved for tracks near the team’s dealership network — much like a home team putting on its familiar color. The No. 5 team has the confidence to reclaim its place in the playoff fight — and possibly return to Victory Lane.
“I’m excited and confident about what we’ve built on the five team, and I think even right now, it’s kind of showcasing that we’re quietly stepping our way through the playoffs, and we’ve still had a very reasonable season,” Daniels added. “You don’t accidentally walk into the playoffs as the top seed. That doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t happen that you’re accidentally third in points. You’ve got to earn that, and that’s our mindset.”
