Posted on by Kathy Sheldon

KANSAS CITY, Kan — The restart zone at Kansas Speedway is demarcated by yellow paint on the walls with two red stripes at the leading end and one red stripe at the end. It’s still a hot zone for NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers as they prepare for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 some (2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).
 
Jamie McMurray, who was bumped from the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup after the Challenger Round, said he thought the expanded restart zone worked out well at Charlotte.
 
“The one thing that I like that Charlotte did is they painted it across the race track,” McMurray said. “So, when you were a guy further back in the pack, you could tell when the leaders were there so you have a pretty good idea of when they were going to go. Some of the tracks, Indy is probably the worst track because of how long the straightaway is and the fact that you’re literally just going straight. You can’t tell where the restart zone is.”
 
The restart zone at Kansas this weekend is 180 feet. It had been only 70 feet at Dover in the past, but was increased to 140 feet for the Oct. 4 race there as the rule evolved. The sanctioning body lengthened the restart zone for the 2015 season’s remaining races post-Dover, generally taking pit road speed (in Kansas’ case, 45 mph) times four.
 
Carl Edwards added that restarts and track position will be crucial in Sunday’s race. And Kansas is crucial in the Contender Round as tumultuous Talladega looms as the last race in this leg of the Chase. The top eight drivers move on to the Eliminator Round after next week’s CampingWorld.com 500 at Talladega.

RELATED: Is Kansas as much of a wildcard than Talladgea?
 

“This race can be really tough because the restarts are going to be insanity,” said Edwards, who enters Sunday’s race at sixth place in the standings, nine points behind Charlotte winner Joey Logano.
 
 
Fellow Chase driver Ryan Newman isn’t as concerned about the restart zone itself. Newman sits on the Chase bubble in ninth place after Charlotte.
 
“I don’t really worry about it,” Newman said after Saturday’s second Sprint Cup Series practice session. “I don’t usually see them.”
 
It is the leaders under the most scrutiny on restarts as Brad Keselowski found out at New Hampshire when he was black flagged for jumping the restart while Greg Biffle was leading.

WATCH: Keselowski black flagged after restart at New Hampshire
 
But some of the impetus for any rule changes on restarts was concerns about cars bunching up mid-pack as the leader waits, gaming the restart for any possible advantage. McMurray says that’s why it’s a key concern when drivers can’t see the restart zone.
 
“You’re kind of basing on your spotter; and when you spotter says ‘Go,’ that’s not when you go because it’s delayed depending on where you are in the pack,” McMurray said. “But, I think some of what you saw last week was because it was expanded a little bit and guys were just anticipating that. But I thought it worked out really well.”

Posted on by Kathy Sheldon

At first glance, Talladega stands out as the wild card in the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. But Kansas Speedway can throw her own curveballs at drivers, and Chase contenders weren’t looking too far ahead on Friday.

 

Martin Truex Jr. , who had the sixth-fastest practice time in Friday’s opening NASCAR Sprint Cup practice at Kansas (193.299 mph) in his No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, expects tension to remain high in the fifth race of the Chase on Sunday (2:15 p.m. ET, NBC MRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).

 

“I think if you look at all the Chase races, it’s really been intense,” said Truex Jr., who sits in third place in the Chase, seven points behind leader Joey Logano. “Just looking at the restarts and the things that have happened, you can really feel it out there.

 

“Everybody is pushing as hard as they can all the time to get every position. So, I don’t think it’ll be anything out of the ordinary for what we’ve had so far, or what we’ve seen last year in the Chase races with guys fighting after the race and all that. You’ve got to get everything you can.”

 

After the fall 2014 race at Charlotte, Matt Kenseth and Brad Keselowski wound up brawling between haulers. Charlotte was rough on Kenseth again this fall, with the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota finishing 42nd after mishaps and contact with Ryan Newman .

 

Kenseth likely needs a win at either Kansas or Talladega to advance to the Eliminator Round. His No. 20 Toyota came off the hauler fast at Kansas Speedway, putting up a top-three practice speed of 194.147 mph.

 

Kenseth’s JGR teammate Carl Edwards had his own scuffling on-track at Charlotte this year, trading paint with Dale Earnhardt Jr. ‘s No. 88 Chevrolet. Edwards wound up finishing sixth, but the No. 88 suffered more damage and Earnhardt Jr. finished 28th. That left Edwards sixth in the points standings coming into Kansas and Earnhardt Jr. scrambling in 11th place among the 12 remaining Chase drivers, 13 points ahead of Kenseth.

 

“Everyone’s fighting their positions like we saw last week,” Edwards said, anticipating how Sunday’s race might unfold.  “It’s so fast (at Kansas). You’re going so fast in the center of the corners here that one wiggle, one problem that somebody has can turn into a massive wreck. We’ve seen that here.”

 

Earnhardt Jr. said Friday that he is too far in a hole to have any kind of strategy for Kansas. Even as the top performer at Talladega among Chase drivers, the pressure is on this weekend, too.

 

“We ain’t got nothing to lose. We just got to go out there and run hard,” Earnhardt Jr. said, adding he likes racing at Kansas Speedway despite going a decade since winning at an intermediate track. 

 

“This place has a lot of different grooves and gives you a lot of opportunities to move around.  When you catch a slower car you don’t get stuck behind them and feel helpless.  It’s a good track.”

 

Kansas has seen dominant cars run out of gas and spins aplenty. Only Joey Logano is locked into the Eliminator Round of the Chase. He admitted that Talladega is a game-changer — one he’s happy to not be worried about.

 

“The one thing I have learned about Talladega is there’s no safe place,” Logano said. “I’ve been crashed running second. I’ve been crashed running 30th, so where do you go? There’s nowhere good to go. I think that’s why everyone gets so stressed out about it. That’s why everyone has been saying Charlotte and Kansas could be the two most important races in this whole Chase.”

 

 “This whole thing can get turned upside down in one lap at Talladega,” Edwards said, but believes it’s tricky at Kansas, too. “As long as we’re driving around at 200 mph, everybody is getting every inch they can — statistically it can be really tough.”

Posted on by Nascar

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Regan Smith, 33 points out of the lead in NASCAR’s XFINITY Series, will not be returning to JR Motorsports for the 2016 season, according to the 32-year-old driver.
 
After finishing fifth in Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, Smith told NBC Sports reporter Marty Snider he was looking for a new ride.

 

“I know I’m not coming back to JR Motorsports next year for sure,” Smith said, “so I want to go out strong at the end here and do everything we can over these last three (races) to try and catch the 60 (points leader Chris Buescher). We’re going to need help now to do that but certainly been a good three years so we want to have a good last three races.”
 
Later, Smith tweeted:

Smith has been driving the No. 7 JRM Chevrolet full-time since 2013; he made a single start with the team to close the ’12 season, winning at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
 
All six of his victories in the series have come with JRM.
 
The organization, co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series owner Rick Hendrick, fields three full-time XFINITY Series teams as well as one team in the Camping World Truck Series.
 
Earnhardt Jr. announced earlier this month that veteran driver Elliott Sadler would join JRM for 2016, along with sponsor OneMain Financial.
 
Chase Elliott, the 2014 series champion and driver of the team’s No. 9 Chevrolet, will move up to Sprint Cup with Hendrick Motorsports next season, taking over the No. 24 entry currently driven by Jeff Gordon.
 
Smith’s team carries sponsorship from TaxSlayer.com, which recently announced it would continue its support for ’16.
 
Smith finished second to Elliott in last year’s championship battle and third the previous season. Saturday’s race marked his 199th career start in the series.
 
He has two wins this season (at Mid-Ohio and Dover) and trails Buescher by 33 and Elliott by 27 with 30 of 33 races completed. He also has one victory in the Sprint Cup Series (2011 at Darlington Raceway).

Posted on by Nascar

Quick race facts

What: Hollywood Casino 400

Where: Kansas Speedway, 1.5-mile tri-oval in Kansas City, Kansas

Green flag: 2:31 p.m. ET (NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

Forecast: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. South wind 8 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. (NOAA.gov)

National anthem: Gracie Schram

Grand marshal: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, star of NBC’s “Truth Be Told”

Honorary Starter: Kiki Wolfkill, Halo Interactive Entertainment

Distance: 267 laps, 400 miles

Pit road speed: 45 mph

Caution car speed: 55 mph

On the front row | Full lineup

1. Brad Keselowski, Team Penske No. 2 Ford (195.503 mph)

2. Carl Edwards, Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Toyota (195.454 mph)

Failed to qualify

• Timmy Hill, Premium Motorsports No. 62 Chevrolet

Fastest in practice

First practice: Brad Keselowski, Team Penske No. 2 Ford (194.349 mph) | Full results

Second practice: Brad Keselowski, Team Penske No. 2 Ford (189.960 mph) | Full results

Final practice: Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet (188.983 mph) | Full results

Key story lines

• Opposite ends of Chase spectrum for Logano, Kenseth

• Kansas race carries wild card status for Chase

• Improved product, results for Almirola, No. 43 team

• Restarts? Insanity, says Edwards

Former winners in the field

Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon (3); Greg Biffle, Tony Stewart , Matt Kenseth (2); Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick (1).

They said it

“For me it’s really no different. We show up and try to do the best we can every week. Same this week; obviously a win moves you on, but I don’t feel like it’s a must win.” — Matt Kenseth on his 12th-place points position in the Chase standings.

Posted on by Nascar

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Post a couple of top-10 finishes and folks call it a coincidence.

String several together, however, and it begins to look like a trend.

That’s what NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Aric Almirola is counting on these days.

The Richard Petty Motorsports driver has posted four top-10 finishes in his last five outings, including a pair of top-five results.

Almirola, 31, enters Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM) at Kansas Speedway having failed to qualify for this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. But he’s not out of contention for possible race wins.

His recent efforts in the familiar No. 43 Ford have told him as much. A fourth at Richmond, 10th at Chicagoland, fifth at Dover and 10th again at Charlotte with only a 43rd-place finish at New Hampshire marring an otherwise consistent string of finishes.

So do Almirola and his team see the competitive turn as a trend?

“I do,” he said Friday just before qualifying got underway. “I feel like we’ve really hit on some stuff that’s really working for me, the cars have been driving good, we’ve had real good long-run speed for the last six weeks and that’s paid off for us.

“We still have to work on our cars to find some short-run speed, and really run some fast laps but … the way our cars have been racing has been really good. I think we’re on to something.”

Although he narrowly missed qualifying for the 10-race Chase, Almirola sits 17th in points — highest among those who failed to earn one of this year’s 16 berths.

He finished 11th at Kansas when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series visited the 1.5-mile track earlier this season. Talladega, Martinsville, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead round out the remaining races on this year’s Sprint Cup schedule.

“You hope it’s a trend, right?” said crew chief Trent Owens. “Recently I think we’ve gotten maybe just a little bit more speed in our cars. It’s not necessarily one thing I’m doing.

“I think we were really bummed we didn’t get in the Chase because we felt like we were in all year. We felt like we did what we were supposed to do to earn a spot on points if we didn’t win. We had an unfortunate engine situation at Pocono, and a crash at Indy. … A couple of events just put us out.”

Darlington, where Almirola finished 11th, was good even though it was with an aerodynamic package that won’t be used again until 2016. At Richmond “we put our best effort in there,” and scored a top-five, Owens noted. That momentum carried over into a test at Kansas where he said the team “found a few items that might help our cars on the mile-and-a -halves.”

Chicago was solid as was Charlotte, where the team had struggled.

“That kind of said, ‘yeah, we might be doing the right thing,’ ” said Owens.

Beyond the Team Penske entries of 2012 champion Brad Keselowski (one win) and teammate Joey Logano (four wins), the 2015 season hasn’t been particularly memorable for many of those in the Ford camp. Roush Fenway Racing failed to place one of its three teams in the Chase for the first time since the format debuted in 2004. And Sam Hornish Jr., Almirola’s teammate, has only three top-10 results on the year.

Almirola’s improved finishing positions have yet to include a surge in leading laps — he’s led only three all season. But he knows his team is getting better each week.

“Honestly, you just compare yourself to the competition, right? And I think even the best car in the field probably has some issues. He’s probably a little tight in the center or what have you,” Almirola said. “But he’s doing it running faster than everyone else. …

“I think relative to the competition we have improved the handling of our cars and the way our cars are performing … during race conditions.”

The simple answer, Owens said, is that the team needs faster race cars to lead laps and to “get to that next level.”

“If you asked someone to name the race teams in order, we are a middle-of-the-road race team when you talk about people size, money, resources,” he said. “It’s hard to make that jump all the way to first. You can make that jump from 20th to 10th. But to get to fifth and to get to first, dominate races and lead laps, that’s a pretty big step, not just people-wise, but money-wise and resources.”

Almirola will start 23rd Sunday. It’s been 48 races since his last, and so far only, victory in the Sprint Cup Series. Progress has come slowly. But expectations are rising for Almirola and everyone on the team.

“When you go through a stretch where you run 20th and you just can’t seem to find the speed, every weekend you go to the airport and you’re … not necessarily excited but you’re kind of hopeful,” he said.

“It’s like, ‘I’m not sure if Santa is real, but I hope he is.’

“Then when you start running good, you get excited to get on the plane on Thursdays and go to the race track because you’ve got some momentum on your side.

“You feel like you’re just maybe a few small things away from being able to go up there and compete to win races.”

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RELATED: Pit stall selections

Earlier this week NASCAR penalized the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, taking away its pit stall selection after the team received its fourth inspection infraction at Charlotte. What you might not know is how that could affect the team and its pit crew during Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway (2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM).

Because Keselowski won the Coors Light Pole Award, not having the first selection means the team will not get to take advantage of having a stall toward the exit of pit road, where congestion is less of an issue.  For some tracks the pit road exit line is a much bigger advantage than at others. In certain cases, it’s worth over a second in the pits, and that can add up over the course of a race. 
 
For Kansas, Keselowski will be pitting from stall No. 11, with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team in front of him and Greg Biffle‘s team behind. Being in between two decent teams could cause trouble on a number of different levels. Keselowski will now have to make sure whenever he pits that he is very aware of who’s around him and where they are running. In contrast, when you’re running up front and pit in stall No. 1, the only thing you worry about is speeding in or out. 

It will be very interesting to see how this whole thing plays out during the race.

For more pit crew news, visit PitTalks.com.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Complete Kansas lineup

Matt Kenseth collected the Coors Light Pole Award in Saturday afternoon qualifying for the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Kansas Speedway.



Kenseth drove the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 to a pole-winning lap of 184.906 mph on the 1.5-mile track, notching his fifth pole of the season and 18th of his XFINITY Series career. He’ll start first in Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 (4 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM), the 30th of 33 races for the circuit this season.



Series points leader Chris Buescher was second-fastest at 184.131 mph in the Roush Fenway Racing No. 60 Ford. Regan Smith was third-fastest in the JR Motorsports No. 7 Chevrolet, with Sprint Cup regular Kyle Busch, the defending race winner, fourth-fastest in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 Toyota. XFINITY Series title contender Ty Dillon completed the top five in the Richard Childress Racing No. 3 Chevrolet.



Defending series champ Chase Elliott crashed during the final five-minute round of qualifying, making significant contact with the Turn 4 wall and sliding his JR Motorsports No. 9 Chevrolet into the frontstretch grass. His team began to unload a backup car off the hauler, which will send him to the rear of the 40-car field for the mid-afternoon start.



The wreck caused a stoppage at the 3:23 mark of the final stage of eliminations. At that point, the 11 other drivers still alive for qualifying had all completed an initial lap. Several of those remaining 11 made another qualifying pass but failed to improve their position.



Buescher enters Saturday’s 300-miler with an 18-point lead over Dillon, a 27-point edge over Elliott and a 45-point cushion over Smith.



BJ McLeod brought qualifying to a temporary halt with nine minutes left in the first round, making a prolonged slide through Turns 3 and 4 in his No. 15 Chevy. McLeod drove through the grass just ahead of the pit entrance and did not advance past the opening 20-minute session.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Keselowski lands Coors Light Pole Award | Practice 2 results | Final practice results



Jimmie Johnson soared to the top of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series speed charts in Saturday afternoon’s final practice at Kansas Speedway.



Johnson logged a session-best lap of 188.983 mph in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet, upending pole-starter Brad Keselowski‘s bid for a perfect weekend at the 1.5-mile track. Johnson, eliminated early from title contention, will start 21st in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM), the second race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs’ Contender Round.



Keselowski settled for second-fastest in the Team Penske No. 2 Ford, posting a lap of 188.930 mph, just eight thousandths of a second off Johnson’s top time. The 2012 series champ won the Coors Light Pole Award in Friday qualifying and led the first two practices before Saturday’s final session.



Denny Hamlin was third-fastest, just ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth. Joey Logano — who has already clinched his spot in the Eliminator Round by winning the Contender opener last week at Charlotte — completed the top five in the Team Penske No. 22 Ford.



Kevin Harvick, the Sprint Cup Series defending champion, was 18th-fastest overall in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet. Final practice positions for the rest of the championship-eligible Chase drivers: Carl Edwards (sixth), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (ninth), Martin Truex Jr. (10th), Ryan Newman (11th), Kurt Busch (16th), Kyle Busch (24th) and Jeff Gordon (29th).



Hamlin sat atop the five-lap average heap, followed by Johnson, Truex, Keselowski and Kenseth. In the 10-lap-average category, Johnson led, followed by Truex, Kasey Kahne, Kenseth and Harvick.


Keselowski shows the way in second practice


Coors Light Pole Award winner Brad Keselowski backed up his Friday show of speed by rocketing to the top of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series leaderboard Saturday in second practice at Kansas Speedway.



Keselowski clocked a lap of 189.960 mph in the Team Penske No. 2 Ford. He will start first in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM), the fifth race in the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs.



“The track is changing,” Keselowski said. “Today it’s a lot cooler than it’s supposed to be tomorrow. We know the grooves and all of that is going to change, so we have some speed but we have to keep working on it because you’re gonna see comers and goers as the track changes and we don’t want to be a goer. We want to be one of those guys that comes to the front and stays in the front, so we’ve got to keep working.”



Matt Kenseth, who sits in the Chase basement after a trouble-filled race last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, turned the second-fastest lap at 189.215 mph in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota. Joey Logano, the defending race winner at Kansas and last week’s winner at Charlotte, was third-best at 189.062 mph in the Team Penske No. 22 Ford.



A pair of part-time Sprint Cup drivers closed out the top five in the 55-minute session. Ryan Blaney was fourth-fastest (188.910 mph) in the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 Ford. Brian Scott recovered from a mid-practice spin on pit road entry to post the fifth-best lap at 188.897 mph.



Defending Sprint Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick was ninth-fastest in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet. Practice positions for the rest of the title-eligible Chase drivers: Martin Truex Jr. (sixth), Denny Hamlin (eighth), Ryan Newman (10th), Kurt Busch (16th), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (17th), Kyle Busch (20th), Carl Edwards (22nd) and Jeff Gordon (28th).



Hamlin was the fastest in the 10-lap average category in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota. He was followed by Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch and Blaney in the top five. Keselowski was best in terms of five-lap average speed, followed by Hamlin, Logano, Kenseth and Johnson in that category.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Complete results


KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Overcoming obstacles in the XFINITY Series is commonplace for Kyle Busch.
 
In Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, Busch brushed aside a pit road speeding penalty, a hole in the nose of his No. 54 Toyota, a pit stop that dropped him to seventh for the penultimate restart, an unwelcome green-white-checkered-flag restart and a teammate who had the fastest car for much of the afternoon.
 
The end result was Busch’s 75th XFINITY Series victory, extending his own record. Busch won for third time at Kansas and for the fifth time in 20 starts this season.
 
The race also saw Chris Buescher add one point to his series lead over Chase Elliott. Though both drivers had issues — Elliott a wreck during qualifying that sent him to a backup car and the back of the field; and Buescher a pit road speeding penalty — Buescher won a drag race to the stripe to come home sixth to Elliott’s seventh and leads the standings by 27 points over the defending champion.
 
But the final 43 laps of the event were vintage Kyle Busch. Restarting seventh on Lap 157 after the seventh caution of the afternoon, Busch surged into second place in a single lap. For the next 28 circuits he harried teammate and eventual runner-up Matt Kenseth before clearing his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate through Turn 4 on Lap 185.
 
Busch survived a green-white-checkered after Joey Gase‘s engine blew and oiled the 1.5-mile track with five laps left. Picking the outside lane, Busch cleared Kenseth entering the first turn and pulled away to win by .607 seconds.
 
“I wasn’t sure we had enough for that 20 car (Kenseth) today, but there at the end of the race, the track was cooling down and certainly getting freer and it looked like Kenseth just was too loose,” Busch said. “And I was able to really get the gas down and drive real hard and had a good car to stick through the corner.
 
“This Monster Energy Camry was awesome, (crew chief) Chris Gayle and the guys did a fantastic job for me in getting me a really good piece there at the end to be able to battle with Matt, and it’s cool to end up in Victory Lane any day… I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the pass done, but fortunately, finally there I was able to do it.”
 
Kenseth suffered a loose handling condition late in the race and couldn’t keep Busch behind him.
 
“It’s frustrating to get beat again,” said Kenseth, who has finished second in each of his last four XFINITY Series starts. “We were out front in Chicago and had the better car, but second is the (next) best place to finish, I guess.
 
“Kind of aggravating when you get beat, but we were too free at the end. I didn’t give Wheels (crew chief Mike Wheeler) good enough information on the tires. I did everything I could to hold off Kyle except for wrecking. Just couldn’t do it.”
 
Joey Logano finished third, followed by fourth-place Ty Dillon and fifth-place Regan Smith.

Busch would like nothing better than to duplicate his victory in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Kansas (2:15 p.m. ET on NBC). After a 20th-place finish last Sunday at Charlotte in the first race of the Chase’s Contender Round, Busch could earn a spot in the Eliminator 8 Round with the ninth XFINITY/Sprint Cup weekend sweep of his career (including his three-series sweep at Bristol in 2010).

Posted on by Kathy Sheldon

RELATED: Updated NXS standings

 

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Chris Buescher still runs under the radar at the race track.

 

He’s not mobbed by fans … yet. He is a talented driver coming up in the Roush Fenway Racing ranks — possibly making the jump to Sprint Cup full-time in 2016 — and leads the XFINITY Series points race heading into Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 (4 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.)

 

So get to know him now, before everyone else jumps on is bandwagon. Here are five reasons why you should:

 

1. He’s not as green as you might think. The 22-year-old has an ARCA championship under his belt from 2012 and has 70 XFINITY Series starts, plus six Sprint Cup Series starts in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. “I’ve been testing Cup cars since I was 16 with Roush. I’ve done all kinds of testing — when it was still allowed — from California back to Charlotte,” Buescher reminded reporters at Kansas Speedway on Friday.

 

2. He’s mentally tough. Buescher is 26 points ahead of defending series champion Chase Elliott with four races remaining. Elliott’s JR Motorsports teammate, Regan Smith, is just 34 points back, followed by Richard Childress Racing‘s Ty Dillon sitting 38 points back.

 

Sprint Cup Series driver, and Chase contender, Joey Logano complimented Buescher’s composure amid the tight battle.

 

“He’s been consistent and kind of doing his thing out there,” Logano said of Buescher on Friday. “He’s got some good drivers aimed at him trying to win this championship as well, and it doesn’t seem like the pressure is making him crack yet.”


3. He’s had fun with fans and wants to compete with integrity. “Being under the radar has been fine, but fans are starting to take notice, so they are starting to see one or two T-shirts out there that have a “60” on them, and it’s been neat to build off of. And to build off the wins and try to take that and make it into something constructive for our entire team — to make all these guys see that we are doing everything we can and we’re doing it the right way.”

 

4. He’s not in a hurry to compete in the Sprint Cup Series full time. Jack Roush has said he expects Buescher to be in a Sprint Cup car sooner rather than later, but the young driver trusts the process and isn’t rushing his ascent.

“I don’t know that I’m fully prepared right now,” Buescher said. “This is a sport where you see way too many people get rushed up into the next level and aren’t ready to perform at that level. There are guys who have been rushed up, weren’t ready and now you don’t hear much from them anymore.

“I had a lot of fun in the Front Row car this year. Our six races went really well, all things considered. From my experience level, I was able to get in it and have it come to me rather quickly. If that’s what 2016 brings (a move to a full-time Sprint Cup ride), I think we’ll be ready for it.”

5. He’s already competing against Cup Series drivers. “It’s been a tough part of this season, trying to run with the Cup guys,” Buescher said, noting he’s one of only two XFINITY Series championship-eligible drivers with more than one win this season.

Buescher has wins at Dover and Iowa. Regan Smith has wins at Mid-Ohio and Dover. XFINITY Series regulars have victories in just eight of the 29 series races this year — that may become nine at Kansas.

“We led a lot of laps here early last year and were extremely fast all weekend. I feel as good about this place as any trying to get another win this year. (Kansas) is a place where we can definitely go gain and possibly get another win.”