The Kansas drought broken, Busch was already thinking about Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400, the first race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup’s Contender Round. Never having scored a top-five in a Cup race at Kansas, Busch will start seventh Sunday.

"You learn enough here — there was a bit of moving around today and trying to run bottom and trying to run top and seeing where the different lines were in traffic and stuff like that," Busch said. "I feel like our Cup car is OK. If we can get out of here with a top-10 day tomorrow that would be pretty good.

"Great effort by (crew chief) Adam (Stevens) and all the guys on this 54 car — it was really awesome again today and should have won at Chicago just like we did here today. Missed out there, but we just keep doing things right, and you end up in Victory Lane, so you have to have it all match up for you."

Harvick had winning chances because his crew chief, Ernie Cope, played a contrarian pit strategy to perfection and got some help from a timely caution. Harvick was the only lead-lap driver to bring his car to pit road under the seventh caution on Lap 91, and that put him in position to wait out a cycle of green-flag stops with roughly 60 laps left.

With all other lead-lap cars pitting between Laps 136 and 141, Harvick was the only car on the lead lap when Dakoda Armstrong‘s spin brought out the eighth caution. Busch, who was leading before the cycle of stops began, got the free pass as the highest scored lapped car, and the rest of the lead-lappers took wave-arounds after Harvick pitted for fuel.

Harvick led the field to green on Lap 153 but couldn’t keep Busch at bay on longer runs.

"They gave us a good opportunity with strategy there, (but) the 54 was quite a bit better as we got going into the run," Harvick said. "We could hold him off for a short run, but in the end his car would maintain speed, and ours would slow down.

"We just got beat there today, but that happens."

The race dealt a crushing blow to Regan Smith‘s championship hopes. Smith spun and backed into the wall during qualifying earlier in the day and was forced to start from the rear of the field in a backup car.

On Lap 140, the sway bar arm on Smith’s No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet broke, and lost seven laps getting it fixed. Smith finished 22nd and is now 38 points behind teammate Chase Elliott in the series standings.

Ty Dillon, third in the championship battle, ran fifth Saturday and is 40 points behind Elliott, who finished 10th, with four races left in the season.

"Any time you have to roll a backup car out two hours before a race, you have to expect anything to happen," said Smith, who just re-signed for another year with JR Motorsports’ Nationwide program. "My guys did a great job of getting the car ready to where we could get to the grid with it, much less be competitive for the first stage of the race.

"We fought with it. It’s kind of what we anticipated for the day and at this point — obviously disappointed. It’s been a long year."

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Chris Buescher continued to his strong recent run and qualified third (183.393 mph) in his No. 60 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing. Kevin Harvick (183.362 mph) will start fourth, ahead of Brian Scott (183.299 mph).

Series points leader Chase Elliott will line up 12th on the grid.

Richard Childress Racing teammates Scott and Dillon led the opening two sessions, respectively.

Matt Kenseth (181.622 mph) finished 13th in the second round and did not make the 12-driver final session. Neither did Ryan Reed (180.898 mph, 14th), Dylan Kwasniewski (180.789 mph, 15th) or James Buescher (180.463 mph, 16th).

Regan Smith, second in the points standings to JR Motorsports teammate Elliott, qualified 24th in the field but will have to start from the rear, and in a backup car. He spun around in Turn 2 during the 10-minute second round, and his No. 7 Chevrolet incurred heavy damage. And because qualifying was hours before Saturday’s race, Smith hasn’t had any seat time in his backup vehicle.

The red flag had previously been displayed in the second round when John Wes Townley hit the wall, but the break to clean the track of debris following Smith’s wreck was significantly longer.

Group qualifying at the 1.5-mile track consisted of three rounds, with 24 cars advancing from the first round to the second and 12 cars advancing to the final five-minute round.

Milka Duno qualified 34th and will make her NASCAR debut.

Morgan Shepherd, Tanner Berryhill and Ryan Ellis did not qualify.

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Ryan Blaney qualified second and will pit in the fourth stall. A fellow Ford driver, Chris Buescher, was third-fastest and chose the seventh stall with an opening behind him.

Across the opening from Buescher will be Kevin Harvick, who qualified fourth, in stall 8 with an opening in front of him. Another Chevy driver, Brian Scott, selected the 14th stall with an opening in front of him. The top Toyota in the field, sixth-fastest qualifier Kyle Busch, will pit across the opening in stall 12.

Points leader Chase Elliott qualified 12th and will pit in the 43rd stall, the first pit box at the Turn 4 entrance to pit road.

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