KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Layne Riggs’ No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford was disqualified from his second-place finish in Saturday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race following post-race inspection.
Despite a thrilling battle with Carson Hocevar for the apparent race win, Riggs’ truck was ruled to have violated Section 14.4.9.A in the NASCAR Rule Book, which refers to the bed cover of the vehicle.
According to the graphic listed in the rule book: “Bed cover material must be strong enough to prevent the cover from deflecting or sagging and must be sealed around the perimeter of all bed panels while the vehicle is in competition.”
Riggs will instead be credited with a last-place finish in 31st. There were no other issues in post-race inspection, affirming Hocevar as the race winner.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Carson Hocevar survived last-lap contact from the Ford of Layne Riggs, bounced off the outside wall and half a lap later took the checkered flag to win Saturday night’s Heart of Health Care 200 at Kansas Speedway.
The victory was Hocevar’s first of the season in his second NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start this year, his first at the 1.5-mile track and the fifth of his career.
But Hocevar had to keep the fast-closing truck of Riggs behind him. On the final lap, Riggs steered to the inside of Hocevar’s No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, got to the left rear quarter of the Silverado and slid up the track into Hocevar’s truck.
After the contact, both Hocevar and Riggs maintained control, and both scraped the outside wall before continuing toward the finish line. With William Byron looking on from what was then third place, Hocevar arrived 0.262 seconds ahead of Riggs, who appeared to finish second at Kansas for the second straight time.
However, Riggs was disqualified after post-race inspection, where officials discovered a truck bed cover violation on his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, elevating Byron to second place.
“I was just hoping they would crash, but they didn’t,” said Byron, who fought a tight-handling No. 07 Spire truck as the final run progressed and finished 0.718 seconds behind the race winner.
“I just thought I’d make it entertaining,” Hocevar quipped after climbing from his truck for a frontstretch interview. “That 34 truck (Riggs) was super, super good. This truck was really good on the short runs — I didn’t think he would get to us for how far back he was, but he was super good.
“Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a finish like that where it’s been all out there. So credit to him. I know he was going for everything there.”
Riggs and third-place finisher Corey Heim lost track position on the wrong side of a cycle of green-flag pit stops midway through the final stage. Riggs recovered to challenge for the lead, while Heim incurred a penalty for an improper restart to squander his chances at victory.
“Man, I gave it my all,” Riggs said. “We were really down bad with the track position there. In the third segment, we were about to take the lead, and we did a green-flag pit stop and that really hurt us — had to come from 16th on that green-flag run to get all the way back to him.
“I got to him, got into him a little bit. We both hit the wall, and he won the race. I think he was mad at me. I think he flipped me off all the way down the frontstretch coming to the checkered. But how can you be mad when you win the race?”
With the disqualification, however, Riggs had ample reason to be disappointed. The No. 34 truck was relegated to a 31st-place finish, last on the leaderboard.
Heim led 52 of the first 53 laps and won the first stage but lost 15 positions on pit road under caution on Lap 53 when the rear tire changer’s air gun broke. Heim charged back to fourth in the running order, but lost all his progress when the sixth caution, for Frankie Muniz’s spin into the infield grass, interrupted the cycle of green-flag stops on Lap 97, trapped Heim a lap down and forced him to take a wave-around.
That’s when Hocevar, who remained on the lead lap after pitting, gained control of the race, which featured seven cautions for 33 laps. Hocevar led three times for 75 laps.
Heim did further damage to his own chances by changing lanes to the outside behind the truck of Toni Breidinger before the start/finish line on a Lap 103 restart. Thwarted in his attempt to win a third straight race at Kansas, Heim charged back to third at the finish.
“Started out with that pit gun breaking — no fault to my pit crew there,” Heim said. “They did an awesome job all night. It seemed like a situational kind of deal there and then caught on the exact wrong time on the green-flag cycle.
“Had to take the wave and start from the back again and got out of line for a penalty on my part. A roller coaster kind of day today.”
Rookie Gio Ruggiero ran fourth, followed by Stewart Friesen, Brandon Jones, pole winner Jake Garcia, Kaden Honeycutt, Grant Enfinger and Daniel Hemric.
NOTE: No other issues emerged from post-race technical inspection, confirming Hocevar as the race winner.
Track: Kansas Speedway Location: Kansas City, Kansas Track length: 1.5 miles When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET Where to tune in: FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,055,250 Race distance: 267 laps | 400.5 miles Stages: 80 | 165 | 267 Defending winner:Kyle Larson, May 2024 Starting lineup:Kyle Larson nudges Chris Buescher from P1 to take Kansas pole
Team execution amid chaos is key to success Sunday at Kansas
If Saturday afternoon’s practice session was any indication, Sunday’s Cup Series race will be unpredictable.
Teams pushed the limits to find speed and were aggressive on air pressure in their tires which led to multiple issues for the likes of Brad Keselowski, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs and Zane Smith to maximize pace during the short-run sessions. While teams will be more conservative in maintaining their cars for potential long runs Sunday afternoon, Kansas still provides treacherous moments for when drivers choose to push hard.
During practice, two-time Kansas winner Kyle Larson scrubbed the wall running the top line on the progressively banked Turns 3 and 4. Despite the contact, Larson still put in the ninth-best single lap of the session and was the fastest overall in 10-lap consecutive averages.
According to data from NASCAR Insights, all signs point toward Toyota taking back the reins at a track that they dominated in 2022 and 2023.
Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick are all listed in the top five in speed rating during the Next Gen era at Kansas, and three Toyota teams also have the best pit crews so far in 2025 with the No. 23 (Bubba Wallace), No. 54 (Ty Gibbs) and No. 11 (Hamlin) teams.
Three of 23XI Racing’s eight Cup wins have come at Kansas, but both Wallace and Reddick were snubbed from top 10s in both events last year.
From Wallace: “We wanted to give everybody else a chance,” he said with a smirk on Saturday during at-track media availabilities. “We decided to try something different and it didn’t work for us. I, myself, was very adamant on getting back to where we need to be when we show up to this place because when you show up to places that you’ve had success in, it breeds confidence, right? When you go into it and you have a lackluster day like my two races last year were, it hurts a little bit. Nothing’s ever the same. No matter how good you have it going, you always have to continue to evolve and somewhere we got off the path, but hopefully get it back.”
Both Reddick and Wallace were top 10 in single-lap practice speed Saturday. In qualifying, Reddick posted the fourth-best time while Wallace will start 15th for Sunday’s 400-miler.
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
With Kansas’ tendency to provide great racing from start to finish, the final laps can come down to a pass in the final corner or who was just thousandths of a second quicker coming to the start/finish line.
The most recent spring edition at Kansas gave just that as Kyle Larson outdueled Chris Buescher by a mere 0.001-second margin in the closest Cup Series finish in history. For Buescher’s crew chief Scott Graves, seeing the replays make it almost impossible not to dwell on.
“The part that makes it hard is it they show it all the time, right?” Graves told NASCAR.com. “Guys that were on the Ricky Craven, Kurt Busch cars from the closest finish at Darlington — there was a guy that still works in the garage that was on the losing end of that one, and he thanked me last year after that finish because he’s like ‘now I don’t have to look at it every year.’ The ones that are that close, you always look at and think about what if, but you try to move on. You look ahead and you know that it’s a good track for us, so we always circle it as one that we can be really competitive at.”
Kansas has also been a track that shows a full team result where the driver and pit crew have near equal input in how they finish their race. Last year’s playoff race saw Denny Hamlin lose lots of track position on pit road as the No. 11 crew struggled to have a clean stop, but Hamlin was able to grind out a top-10 result to net a good points day.
Cliff Daniels, crew chief for Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, noted that their team has also had its pit-road woes at the 1.5-mile oval but that Larson has been able to make up for it.
“You can run so many different lanes,” Daniels told NASCAR.com. “Got cars that are good around the bottom, then you’ve kind of got a lane off the wall, then you’ve got a lane at the wall. It just makes for a really, really fun and exciting race. When you do have the track position, the critical aspects of keeping it are the details of the pit stop and being good enough on pit road and executing those couple restarts that are really critical to maintain your day.”
Kansas has been the home to the most speeding penalties at intermediate ovals in the Next Gen car with 37 since the spring race in 2022.
“We’re aware of it. It’s part of what we review every week, which I’m sure everybody does,” Graves said. “There’s hot spots on pit road that we’re aware of, and if you’re in a spot, you can pick in that area on pit road so it kind of takes those out of play. If not, then you just, you got to be aware of them and be careful. There certainly are some here. For the benefit you get from pushing pit road, it’s just not worth the penalty of having to go to the back of the field.”
Dominating Kansas doesn’t guarantee a win. The driver leading the most laps failed to win the last five Kansas races, the longest streak ever at the track. Moreover, the pole sitter has not won at Kansas in the Next Gen car and has only won once since 2018 (Kyle Larson, fall 2021).
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
ROSS CHASTAIN. A 23.5 average starting position through 11 races this season has been by far the worst for the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing driver since joining the team in 2022, but it hasn’t stopped the 32-year-old journeyman from grinding out top 10 after top 10. He’s tallied five of them in the last seven races and enters Kansas, where he won last fall, coming off a runner-up result at Texas Motor Speedway last weekend.
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your race-day lineup.
For the second straight year through practice and qualifying in the spring Kansas weekend, Chris Buescher leads the charge of drivers challenging Hendrick Motorsports and Toyota. Buescher had threatening pace over the long haul, ranking second on 10-lap averages and fourth over a 20-lap run. I’ve added the No. 17 car to my lineup in place of Kyle Busch, who had speed in practice but slapped the outside wall during his qualifying run. An early qualifying draw dropped Alex Bowman to 21st in the starting lineup, but the No. 48 car is plenty fast to have available come Sunday.
Lineup: Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Chris Buescher.
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles. • NASCAR at Kansas: Key information, links, results through the weekend | Read more
• Welcome back, Miami: Homestead returns as Championship Weekend host in 2026 | Read more • Clearing the air: Hocevar details midweek conversation with Preece after Texas comments | Watch video
• Rebound on the way?: JGR has cooled over the last few weeks, but is reignition on the horizon? | Read more
• Blaney’s best: Where can the 2023 Cup champ get to Victory Lane before playoffs begin? | View gallery
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 | Read more
• Turning Point to Kansas: Where chaos becomes the standard | Read more
• At-track images: Best photos, scenes from Kansas doubleheader | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: All the thrills and intense finishes from the Sunflower State | Watch races
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs ready to tackle Kansas | View gallery
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — If Chris Buescher wasn’t tired of Kyle Larson after last year’s record-close finish at Kansas Speedway, he certainly should be after Saturday’s qualifying session at the 1.5-mile track.
Running what he called “a perfect-feeling lap,” Larson, the last driver to make a run during time trials, knocked Buescher off the provisional pole for Sunday’s Advent Health 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Larson scorched the intermediate speedway with a lap at 183.730 mph (29.391 seconds), beating Buescher (183.374 mph) for the top starting spot by 0.057 seconds — a much wider margin, relatively speaking, than the heartbreaking 0.001-second advantage Larson held over the RFK Racing driver at the end of last year’s spring race at Kansas.
The Busch Light Pole Award was Larson’s first of the season, his first at Kansas and the 22nd of his career. The pole is the 14th at Kansas for Chevrolet and the seventh this season for the automaker.
“The qualifying lap felt really good,” Larson said. “You’re watching SMT (data), and you can see that drivers are starting to hold it easy wide open in (Turns) 1 and 2. In (Turns) 3 and 4, some guys were getting tight.
“Buescher was able to run a good 3 and 4. I kind of had a plan on the line I wanted to run and just try to match it with the throttle, and fortunately, everything went great. My balance felt really good, I felt like I hit my marks and came up to speed through 3 and 4 good, so it was a perfect-feeling lap.”
In last spring’s race, Larson surged forward at the finish to edge Buescher by less than four inches. The fact that Buescher was again the victim of the speed in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was not lost on the pole winner.
“It’s definitely ironic and really cool,” Larson said. “I think it adds to the story line of what happened last year and probably builds anticipation for the race (on Sunday). I won’t be thinking about it, I guess, when we’re rolling around under caution, but, yeah, it’s ironic and funny and cool all at the same time.”
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A Texas-sized dustup between Carson Hocevar and Ryan Preece in Fort Worth has been resolved one week later at Kansas Speedway.
Hocevar, Spire Motorsports’ speedy sophomore, reached out to Preece via text midweek after an incident May 4 at Texas Motor Speedway ultimately resulted in Hocevar putting both himself and Preece into the outside wall, creating a crash exiting Turn 2.
After being evaluated and released from the infield care center, Preece told FOX Sports: “He (Hocevar) just seems to be proving me right over and over again. … Just got ran into the fence by somebody that has no respect for his equipment, anybody else’s equipment and any other driver out there. He’ll have his day.”
Hocevar extended his apologies to Preece and the No. 60 in post-race interviews but made sure to touch base with Preece in the aftermath as well ahead of Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I reached out and texted him, and we reached out and we talked a little bit just this afternoon in person,” Hocevar told NASCAR.com Saturday at Kansas. “I thought it would be healthy to do it in person, not a phone call or text, and shook each other’s hand and have a really good understanding of where each other’s at.
“I thought it was very productive,” he said during a press availability. “I thought he heard my point of view, and I heard his and I think we have a really good understanding to go forward.”
Hocevar explained he had just completed a pass on Chris Buescher on entry to Turn 1 and was unwinding the wheel on corner exit when his car began pushing toward the outside wall. Simultaneously, Preece had pounced to Hocevar’s outside. As the handling of Hocevar’s car grew tight, Preece was squeezed into the outside SAFER barrier and spun to the inside retaining wall, where he was then struck by a spinning Cody Ware who was collected in the aftermath.
“I think he was very understanding of it,” Hocevar said. “Obviously we both wrecked, and it wasn’t good for either of us. And we’re both around the same points situation and he’s having a good year. I feel like we’re faster than expected. I think we just both have the understanding that we don’t want to ruin the momentum each other has moving forward.”
Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet, has been making starts across NASCAR’s national series since 2019, but Preece has been doing so since 2013, the same year he won the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship. As a veteran, he sees the speed Hocevar has — and simply wants him to harness it.
“What he did is he explained what happened, what he was hearing, and why he made the decisions he made,” Preece said Saturday. “Then I tried to give him a different perspective of what I would have done if I was in his situation. You know, it’s up to him to choose whether he’s going to put himself and myself or another racer in those type of positions. And I think with the intentions and him coming over, hopefully, that’s the case. And I hope moving forward, you don’t hear him in controversy.”
Preece shared his perspective later Saturday with hopes that Hocevar would use better judgment moving forward.
“It’s going to be up to him to hopefully do the things that he said when we talked to each other and prove to everybody around that he’s just going to make better decisions. I hope he does. He’s a good racer. I told him that when we were in the trailer. So I think moving forward, it’s going to be up to him to make good decisions.”
Hocevar has had a fair share of detractors, earning criticism for his on-track aggression — evidenced at Atlanta where veterans Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney spoke with him post-race — mixed with his impressive speed — evidenced at Texas by earning his first career Busch Light Pole Award. The 22-year-old is careful what comments he lets impact his perspective as he adapts to racing at NASCAR’s top level.
“I mean, there’s certain things that are said in the heat of the moment, and then when you go talk to them, it’s a different conversation, right?” Hocevar said. “And I think that’s, a lot of times, what happens. You get the radio transmission or you see the talks after the race, or interviews and everything, and then when I have that conversation, it’s just different. It’s heat of the moment. I mean, there’s so many times where I feel like drivers will say something on the radio and they don’t even remember they said it, right? I mean, you saw it with teammates before, right? So there’s so many different things, and it’s just balancing that and knowing, for me, the intent of it.”
Hocevar’s decision to reach out to Preece was a welcomed one, but Hocevar’s future actions are what Preece will be watching.
“It’s a step, but I think moving forward, you prove it on the race track,” Preece said. “I think that’s your next opportunity. Words are words — and I think he really does mean what he’s saying. And moving forward, I hope we’re not talking about incidents. We’re talking about good runs or whatnot.”
Two NASCAR Cup Series teams were penalized Saturday for trouble getting through opening inspection Saturday at Kansas Speedway.
The No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford team (driver Todd Gilliland) and the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota group (driver Tyler Reddick) each failed inspection twice before qualifying for Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The car chief for each team was ejected, and both teams also lost pit-stall selection for Sunday’s 400-miler.
Multiple teams suffered tire issues in NASCAR Cup Series practice Saturday afternoon as Ty Gibbs — one of the drivers affected — topped the speed chart at Kansas Speedway.
Five teams slowed with flat rear tires during the session, which was divided into two groups with 25 minutes of track time each. The practice marked the first on-track time for the Cup Series ahead of Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), and Gibbs’ No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led the way with a best lap of 180.144 mph — the only car to break the 30-second barrier in practice at 29.976 seconds.
The other four teams that were hampered by flats were:
No. 6 RFK Racing Ford for driver/owner Brad Keselowski
No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for driver Chase Briscoe
No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford for Zane Smith
No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet for Shane van Gisbergen
Four teams had trouble with their left-rear tires; only Smith’s FRM team had a right-rear tire issue, and his No. 38 was the only car to make contact with the wall because of it.
“I was going through (Turns) 3 and 4, and it felt a little soft,” said Keselowski, “and thankfully it did give me a warning, so I didn’t spin out and crash. But we’re just all pushing the cars to the limit. I didn’t think we were going to be that close, but we’ll work on it and get it better for Sunday.”
Goodyear officials indicated earlier this week that teams are running a different left-side tire this weekend, changing up the compound to promote wear and more fall-off in lap times. While new to Kansas, the same tire combination was also used at similarly sized tracks like Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Darlington Raceway and Texas Motor Speedway earlier this season.
“Everybody is getting as aggressive as they can be with those rear air pressures, trying to get that back end down,” Goodyear product manager Rick Heinrich said after practice. “Speeds are up a bit, which is going to increase loads. That bump over the tunnel is also pretty aggressive. In a situation like this, where you start out with air pressure that low, the damage is done immediately, and they’re going out on the apron, they’re getting up and hitting that bump. When you cross that line on air pressure, the damage is going to happen pretty quick.”
Behind Gibbs on the practice leaderboard was Michael McDowell, second-fastest at 179.456 mph in the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. Alex Bowman, Bubba Wallace and William Byron completed the top five.
Kyle Larson, the defending race winner, scrubbed the outside retaining wall through Turns 3 and 4 nearly midway through the second practice group. His No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sustained a minor right-side scrape, and he drove back to pit road.
Larson was ninth on the speed chart but topped the category in 10 consecutive lap averages. He backed up that speed in pole qualifying, taking the No. 1 starting spot.
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
See where your favorite NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver will pit for the Heart of Health Care 200 at Kansas Speedway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The NASCAR Cup Series and Truck Series are both in action this weekend at Kansas Speedway. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.
NASCAR Cup Series
Race day: Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FS1. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Tires: 10 sets for the event, including one set for practice and one set for qualifying. The qualifying set transfers into the race, making it nine sets for the 400-miler.
