Posted on by Chris Murdock

The Round of 12 has begun in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, and Kansas Speedway provided big gains for some. Others, meanwhile, came away knowing they will need great performances at the wild cards of Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course to have a chance to advance.

Let’s take a look at the winners and losers from a wild day at the 1.5-mile track in the Midwest.

WINNER

Despite not making the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs, Ross Chastain found himself in Victory Lane for the fifth time in his career after holding off William Byron in the closing laps to claim his first win since NASCAR Championship Weekend in 2023 at Phoenix Raceway. For Chastain, it was a sweet redemption for a season that perhaps hasn’t quite lived up to his expectations.

RELATED: Official race results | At-track photos

WHO’S HOT?

William Byron. With a less than favorable opening round of the Cup Series Playoffs, Byron entered the Round of 12 hoping to turn his performance around, and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet did just that at Kansas Speedway after scoring a Stage 1 win and a runner-up finish. Byron left the Round of 12 opener with the points lead and a 34-point cushion to the elimination line.

Alex Bowman. Building on his stellar Round of 16 performance, Bowman, Byron’s teammate, continued his lights-out postseason run. The No. 48 Chevrolet scored the Stage 2 win and ran up front during much of the Kansas bout. Bowman will head to Talladega with a sixth-place finish under his belt and a position eight points above the elimination line.

WHO’S NOT?

Austin Cindric. After a strong showing in the Round of 16, Cindric will have to bounce back following a 34th-place finish at Kansas. He qualified his No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang in the 17th position and held around mid-pack throughout the opening stages before contact with Kyle Busch sent the 26-year-old spinning into the inside wall. Entering the Round of 12 already below the elimination line in ninth, Cindric fell to 12th, 29 points down.

Tyler Reddick. Entering the Round of 12 20 points above the elimination line, Reddick left Kansas four points below after a 25th-place result. Still, Reddick shouldn’t be in full panic mode just yet as the spring Talladega race is where the No. 45 Toyota punched his ticket to the postseason festivities.

BUBBLE WATCH

RANKDRIVERCUTOFF
5Denny Hamlin11
6Alex Bowman8
7Chase Elliott4
8Joey Logano4
ELIMINATION LINE
9Tyler Reddick-4
10Daniel Suárez-14
11Chase Briscoe-25
12Austin Cindric-29
Posted on by Reid Spencer

KANSAS CITY, Kansas — Enter the Great Disrupter.

Ross Chastain’s No 1. Trackhouse Chevrolet came to life in the second half of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 and beat William Byron’s Chevrolet to the finish line in a hotly contested Round of 12 opener in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Chastain grabbed the lead from Martin Truex Jr. moments after the final restart on Lap 248 at Kansas Speedway and held off a charging Byron by 0.388 seconds to thwart the playoff driver’s bid for automatic advancement into the Round of 8.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Kansas

Having failed to qualify for the postseason this year, Chastain reveled in his first victory of the season, his first at Kansas and the fifth of his career.

“For us on this 1 team, it’s what Cup racing is all about,” said Chastain, who led 52 laps. “It’s what (team co-owner) Justin Marks bought into Trackhouse with Pitbull, bought into NASCAR with Trackhouse to do stuff like this — to disrupt.

“Look, there’s been times this year where we couldn’t have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington, let alone a Cup race. It’s hard. It’s really tough. To come and do this, there are times where I didn’t think after practicing and qualifying we had what it took. I thought we have been way stronger here in the past. It didn’t feel great all day, but our Kubota Chevy, it was better as the rubber went down, and the adjustments were great.”

SHOP: Race winner gear

Byron led 24 laps but couldn’t overcome Chastain’s aerodynamic advantage over the closing laps.

“Yeah, just clean air,” Byron said ruefully. “I feel like he got the restart he needed to, and I was in the second row just trying to clear those guys. Once I got clear of them, my balance was OK. Just a little bit tight, but just kind of inching up on him. I needed probably, you know, for it to be a longer run being in second.

“Damn it, I wanted that one really bad. It just sucks, man. You’re so close, and you know going to Talladega you know what that is. So just sucks, but proud of the effort.”

Truex finished third after restarting in the top lane and surrendering the first two positions to Chastain and Byron. Playoff driver and defending series champion Ryan Blaney rallied to finish fourth after an unscheduled pit stop for a loose wheel.

Ty Gibbs, eliminated from the Cup Series Playoffs at Bristol in the final Round of 16 race, came home fifth, followed by playoff drivers Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell (the pole winner), Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott, who started from the rear of the field after an engine change in his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Byron heads to next Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway as the series leader, with a six-point edge over Bell and Blaney and a 34-point margin over ninth-place Tyler Reddick, the first driver below the cut line for the next round.

Hamlin and Bowman are fifth and sixth in the standings, 11 and eight points above the elimination line, respectively.

For Kyle Larson, top seed in the playoffs entering the Round of 12, Sunday’s race was an unwelcome instance of déjà vu. Reminiscent of his early exit after a slamming the wall in Turn 2 in the first Round of 16 race at Atlanta, Larson cut a right-rear tire and bounced off the Turn 2 wall on Sunday at Kansas just 19 laps into the race.

WATCH: Larson scrubs outside wall in first stage

During the subsequent 56-lap green-flag run to the end of Stage 1, Larson complained of a vibration in his No. 5 Chevrolet, fell one lap down and finished the stage in 35th place.

Larson got his lap back as the beneficiary car under caution for Daniel Hemric’s spin on Lap 143 and mitigated some of the damage to his points position with a 26th-place finish. Larson leaves Kansas fourth in the standings, 18 points above the current elimination line for the Round of 8.

Reddick, Daniel Suárez, Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric weren’t as fortunate.

Reddick, the defending race winner, could only manage a 25th-place result and leaves Kansas four points below the elimination line. Suárez finished 14th and trials Elliott and Joey Logano (tied for eighth) by 14 points.

Briscoe fought an ill-handling car and finished 24th, falling 25 points down to eighth place. Cindric sustained damage during a spin on the backstretch on Lap 157, finished four laps down in 34th and trails Logano and Elliott by 29 points.

Seeking his first victory of the season — with a record 19-year streak of winning at least one race per season on the line — Kyle Busch held the lead on Lap 226, with Chastain in pursuit. But as Busch attempted to put Briscoe a lap down through a narrow gap at the top of the track, his car broke loose and spun off Turn 2, causing the ninth caution.

“I’m sure he was racing to stay on the lead lap with whoever was in front of him there,” said Busch, who finished 19th. “Granted, they have a race to run, but back in the old days when you were under 30 (laps) to go or whatever it was, lapped traffic would kind of lay over and give you a lane and let the leaders race.

“I just wasn’t getting that, so I tried to force my hand into getting that and get to his outside, and for whatever reason, it just gave all the air in all the wrong places, and I spun out.”

The race featured 30 lead changes among 15 drivers, the latter a track record. Bell led a race-high 122 laps. Hendrick teammates Byron and Bowman won stages 1 and 2, respectively.

The Cup Series will continue the Round of 12 at Talladega Superspeedway next Sunday (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Note: Cup Series post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Kansas Speedway garage area, confirming Chastain’s victory. NASCAR officials indicated that the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford of driver Harrison Burton and the No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Chevrolet driven by John Hunter Nemechek would be brought to the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina for further inspection.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Alex Cadavid

Editor’s note: Projection updated after Saturday’s practice and qualifying.

With a shortened playoff field due to four drivers being eliminated after Bristol, the remaining 12 are still searching for a clear path to the championship. Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 presented by ESPN Bet (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) should provide more light on their journey.

RELATED: Set your Fantasy Live lineup | Weekend schedule

Following strong showings during practice and qualifying, Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports drivers continue to lead the way entering Sunday’s race. Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and even Chase Elliott, who will start at the rear, are all projected to finish highly in the Round of 12 opener. Coupled with other playoff drivers — including Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney — predicted to finish strongly, it’s a recipe for what should be another exciting finish.

All of us couldn’t wait to come back to Kansas after witnessing the closest finish in NASCAR Cup history. We sang a similar tune a few weeks ago when it was Atlanta’s turn to provide an encore after its three-wide thriller in February, and that race led to a colossal playoff shakeup.

So, what will we be in store for at Kansas?

In the simplest terms, everything from a playoff spoiler to a 0.001-second margin of victory is in the cards this weekend.

The last four Kansas races have each been thrilling for various reasons. There has been a dramatic, last-lap pass for the win in each of the last two, for starters. While much has already been said about this year’s memorable spring race, just last year we saw another chapter in the storied rivalry between Larson and Hamlin take shape as the No.11 driver made contact with the No. 5 on the backstretch. That race also saw 37 lead changes, a Cup Series record-most for a 400-mile race on a 1.5-mile track.

Last year’s fall race ended with an overtime restart and a mixed bag of race strategies played out in favor of Reddick, who managed to fend off Hamlin in the final two-lap shootout. The 2022 fall race gave us a playoff stunner, with Bubba Wallace playing spoiler and holding off title contenders in the final 40 laps to notch his second Cup win.

Kansas has been full of racing memories, and Sunday’s contest is just another opportunity to add more. It’s hard to predict just how everything will shake out, but it’s safe to say it should be another classic.

DRIVERS TO WATCH

TYLER REDDICK: Last time out in Kansas, Reddick struggled to make ground, but don’t let his spring performance dictate how this weekend goes. Reddick has scored the most points on 1.5-mile tracks this year, with 154 and is the defending race winner.

ALEX BOWMAN: Bowman has scored the most points so far in the playoffs (120) and virtually steered clear of any trouble after a chaotic first round. He finished seventh in the spring race and is peaking at the right time of year, pressing for a win.

CHRISTOPHER BELL: Bell is tied with Austin Cindric for the second-most points scored by a playoff driver through the Round of 16 (103). Bell has scored top 10s in the last two Kansas races. Not to mention, Toyota has won four of the previous five races there.

CHASE ELLIOTT: Elliott quietly scored 97 points through the first round (third most by a playoff driver). He’s also scored the third-most points on 1.5-mile tracks this year. It’s also worth pointing out that Hendrick also had the most wins on intermediate tracks in the Next Gen era with eight.

BUBBA WALLACE: Kansas is one of Wallace’s best tracks. Including his 2022 win, he’s finished in the top 10 in three of the five races at Kansas in the Next Gen car. Plus, even though he’s not a playoff driver, he’s still a threat to crack Victory Lane.

RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400 PRESENTED BY ESPN BET

Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results. 

FinishCar NumberDriver
15Kyle Larson
211Denny Hamlin
320Christopher Bell
445Tyler Reddick
524William Byron
612Ryan Blaney
723Bubba Wallace
854Ty Gibbs
99Chase Elliott
1048Alex Bowman
116Brad Keselowski
1217Chris Buescher
131Ross Chastain
148Kyle Busch
1522Joey Logano
1619Martin Truex Jr.
1777Carson Hocevar
1899Daniel Suárez
1943Erik Jones
2014Chase Briscoe
2134Michael McDowell
222Austin Cindric
237Justin Haley
2410Noah Gragson
254Josh Berry
2671Zane Smith
273Austin Dillon
2851Corey LaJoie
2947Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
3041Ryan Preece
3131Daniel Hemric
3242John Hunter Nemechek
3338Todd Gilliland
3421Harrison Burton
3516Ty Dillon
3615Kaz Grala
3784Jimmie Johnson
3844J.J. Yeley
Posted on by Staff Report

Weekly Race Roster

Posted on by Brandon White

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — When it came time for Josh Berry to advance up the NASCAR developmental ladder, Carson Kvapil had the impossible task of carrying on JR Motorsports’ success in Late Model Stocks.

Berry’s reputation in the discipline included victories in nearly every crown jewel event, a CARS Tour championship and a NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I title. Inheriting a stellar ride like JR Motorsports’ Late Model Stock would be an intimidating prospect for any driver, let alone a rookie like Kvapil.

The past three years have shown Kvapil’s commitment to maintaining JR Motorsports dominance in Late Model Stocks, which was further encapsulated by his victory in the prestigious ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville Speedway Saturday night.

Kvapil, both physically and mentally exhausted after 200 grueling laps, found himself in disbelief over joining a notable list of ValleyStar Credit Union 300 champions that includes Berry.

“Awesome is an understatement,” Kvapil said. “This is so big. It’s the crown jewel of Late Model Stock racing and it has been for years. The last two years, we’ve been so close and have always been there at the end. We didn’t do anything wrong but were just a little bit off. I knew we were going to be good [on Saturday], we just needed to do the right things.

“It’s an honor to drive this car and an even bigger deal to win this race.”

The journey towards Kvapil obtaining a prestigious Grandfather Clock started when he made his debut in JR Motorsports’ Late Model Stock at Florence Motor Speedway in 2021.

A dominant run in Kvapil’s maiden appearance with the program ended with him losing a hard-fought battle to Kaden Honeycutt for the victory. A similar story unfolded two months later in Florence’s South Carolina 400, where he placed second to Ty Majeski after leading 38 laps.

The first starts for Kvapil with JR Motorsports only showcased his potential to crew chief Bryan Shaffer. Having worked with Berry for several years, Shaffer was ready to impart his own wisdom to Kvapil so that he could quickly find his comfort zone in Late Model Stocks.

“[Kvapil] was pretty good right at the start,” Shaffer said. “He just needed seat time in these cars to figure everything out. He knows where to start these races now and has a good feel of the car, especially in these long races.”

Shaffer would not have to wait long to see results in an endurance Late Model Stock event. When the CARS Tour opened the 2022 season with the $30,000-to-win Old North State Nationals at Caraway Speedway, Kvapil earned his first major victory in the discipline.

Although he envisioned success would come eventually with JR Motorsports, Kvapil was surprised the first checkered flag came as early as it did. Shaffer’s excellent strategy, combined with the raw speed of his No. 8, enabled Kvapil to put the CARS Tour on notice with his breakthrough performance.

“I thought we were going to be fast, but really weren’t the whole race,” Kvapil said about winning the Old North State Nationals in 2022. “The first part of the race, we ran from about 12th-15th and about had no hope. We were stuck, but pitted off strategy to try and gain track position. We capitalized and had good speed at the end to win the race. I was feeling a lot of pressure, but I made it happen.”

The accomplishments rapidly accumulated for Kvapil after Caraway. In three years with JR Motorsports, Kvapil has amassed two CARS Tour championships to go along with 11 series victories, 34 top fives and seven poles.

With he and JR Motorsports displaying so much efficiency every week in the CARS Tour, Kvapil was hoping the success would one day carry over into the ValleyStar Credit Union 300. Finishes of second and third in the crown jewel event during his first two years only motivated Kvapil further to claim a grandfather clock for himself.

Possessing one of the strongest cars in Saturday’s ValleyStar Credit Union 300, Kvapil’s primary challenge came from 2016 winner Mike Looney, who traded the lead with him several times throughout the night. Kvapil eventually gained the upper hand on the seasoned veteran and survived an overtime restart to add a ValleyStar Credit Union 300 victory to his growing resume.

Being perfect from opening practice on Saturday was paramount for Kvapil to emerge victorious in the crown jewel event.

“We just needed everything to go right and have a great car at the end, which we did,” Kvapil said. “In this race, you’ve got to be perfect. You can’t mess up qualifying or your heat race, and you obviously can’t mess up the race and get in trouble. We did all the right things and just had a great car at the end to put ourselves in position.”

Celebrating with Shaffer and the rest of his crew in Martinsville’s Victory Lane gave Kvapil time to reflect on his growth while under the JR Motorsports banner.

Kvapil still remembers how nervous he was climbing into Berry’s No. 8 for the first time at Florence in 2021. Since then, Kvapil has done everything to improve himself, primarily when it comes to providing feedback to Shaffer and everyone else on how to maximize the strengths of the car.

For Shaffer, the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 victory was equal parts cathartic and bittersweet, as he is preparing to move the Late Model Stock program forward with a different driver. He has cherished seeing Kvapil grow into one of the best young prospects on the developmental ladder and knows more victories are in his future.

“It makes me happy to see [Kvapil] moving on,” Shaffer said. “You don’t want a new driver because you run so good but you can’t hold them back. He’s ready to move up, he’s ready as anybody is.

“I think he’ll be racing [NASCAR Cup Series] cars in a couple of years.”

With Kvapil’s time in the JR Motorsports No. 8 Late Model Stock coming to an end, he cannot help but be grateful for all the guidance he has received. Along with leaning on Shaffer and car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kvapil also had the privilege of relying on Berry during his first couple of seasons.

Matching Berry’s accomplishments was never the goal for Kvapil. He wanted to build his own identity with JR Motorsports while simultaneously ensuring the program kept visiting Victory Lane in a Late Model Stock industry that keeps evolving every passing year.

Now that he is in the same position as Berry three years ago, Kvapil finds himself content with the journey taken at JR Motorsports.

“Everyone knows how good Josh Berry is with these cars and how many wins he had,” Kvapil said. “To be able to take over his spot and continue on the winning legacy is pretty special. What is special to me is the people who put me in the race car and had the confidence to do the job. I can’t thank them enough.

“This was a really big opportunity for me three years ago and we’ve had really good success. Now we have a grandfather clock.”

There are many chapters left to write in what is expected to be a long, successful career for Kvapil. Of those already written, one will stand out amongst motorsports fans.

He proved himself to be a worthy successor to one of the greatest Late Model Stock rides of all time.

Posted on by Adam Fenwick

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Winning championships often has a lot to do with consistency.

No one knows that better than Peyton Sellers, who claimed his fifth Virginia Late Model Triple Crown championship following a ninth-place finish during Saturday’s ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville Speedway.

“They get harder and harder (to win) that’s for sure,” said Sellers, who pocketed $7,000 for having the best average finish in the three Triple Crown events at South Boston, Langley and Martinsville Speedways. “We had three good races. We had a good race at South Boston, another good one at Langley and we had the speed for a while tonight.”

Sellers entered Saturday’s race second in the Triple Crown standings to NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I champion Connor Hall, who had a 1.5 average finish in the first two legs at South Boston and Langley compared to Sellers’ 3.5.

RELATED: Full highlights from the ValleyStar Credit Union 300

Hall’s pursuit of the Triple Crown ended before halfway as mechanical gremlins combined with a spin left him trapped multiple laps down, putting Sellers in the proverbial catbirds seat.

However, Sellers began to fade late in the race and that seemingly opened the door for Kade Brown to steal the Triple Crown in the closing laps.

Unfortunately for Brown, bad luck also bit him. With eight laps left Brown was collected in a multi-car crash while racing inside the top five. The incident ended Brown’s night and handed Sellers his fifth Triple Crown title.

“At the end of the day, the Triple Crown is a very big deal for us,” said Sellers, who recently clinched his seventh track championship at South Boston Speedway. “It means a lot. We start off at the beginning of the year and we shoot for a championship in the Triple Crown. To be able to do it is a very good opportunity.”

Sellers ended the Triple Crown with an average finish of 5.3.  Despite a challenging day that saw Hall finish 25th, he still managed to finish second in the Triple Crown standings with an average finish of 9.3. Bobby McCarty finished fifth to claim third in the final Triple Crown standings with an average finish of 13.6.

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — With the heartland sun beaming down on Kansas Speedway Saturday afternoon, Cole Custer and Chandler Smith ferociously raced for a coveted win to open the 2024 Xfinity Series Playoffs.

Slipping and sliding across all lanes on the slick 1.5-mile oval, the two title contenders exchanged blows for the lead but were snuck up on in the closing laps as Aric Almirola took advantage of their hard-fought battle to take the spoils of victory.

A runner-up and third-place finishes for Custer and Smith, respectively, paid out good points for both but it didn’t stop the frustrations from overflowing as Custer angrily approached Smith on pit road after the No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing driver made an assertive move off Turn 4 for the lead on the final green-flag run that caused Custer’s No. 00 Ford to kiss the wall.

RELATED: Unofficial results | At-track photos

“I was to his outside and he just put me in the fence,” Custer said.

While the post-race exchange was brief, Custer told Smith that he ‘drove him like a [expletive] clown’ before walking back to his car and throwing his hand as to brush off anything Smith would say back.

Smith said he’ll go back and watch it to determine whether or not he owes Custer an apology but added that he understands why Custer was upset.

“I would be just as frustrated,” Smith admitted. “I moved up. I took his air away and took his line away for 10 or so laps there trying to hold him up as long as I can, trying to give me the best shot. Was hoping I could hold him off long enough to the 20 got to him and they started racing. I got some breathing room but I was like a lap or two short from doing that. The 20 just got to him. So, yeah, it sucks. I understand his frustration. Last week, I was frustrated with some things about Bristol and I completely get it. I understand his point of view. I definitely didn’t put him in the fence.”

MORE: Smith understands Custer’s frustration

Custer finally got around Smith with 10 laps to go but after the pair’s gritty battle, Almirola had enough car underneath him to work his way around the No. 00 without much of a fight.

In terms of their cars handling in the closing laps, Custer pinned the finish on using up everything he had to pass Smith, while Smith’s long-run pace wasn’t on par with Custer and Almirola.

“I think us and the 20 were pretty even,” Custer said. “I think we just burned our tires up racing each other for the lead. The 81, he just couldn’t run the wall on the long run. I don’t know why, but he just couldn’t. The wall was the place to be on the long run.”

“I just needed more turn on throttle, simple as that,” Smith said. “I couldn’t run the wall like those guys were and also, given our situation, having a solid points day, plus-17 to start the race, and some guys were having some issues. Risk vs. reward. I wasn’t gonna put it right up on the fence and chance wrecking the thing. I tried it on the very last lap still wasn’t any good, still needed to be a little bit better on the longer run.”

Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course are left on the Round of 12 slate for the Xfinity Series and while the two haven’t had prior on-track squabbles, Custer will keep Saturday’s race in the memory bank.

“I think it’s just a trend in the whole series,” Custer said. “I mean, people just run you in the fence so I’m over it. I understand it’s hard racing but I don’t race like that, so I don’t expect to get raced like that. But now he races me like that, I race him like that.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

KANSAS City, Kan.— Part-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Aric Almirola ran down playoff leader Cole Custer in the closing laps of Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway and pulled away for his second victory of the season in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

In a Round of 12 playoff opener that ended with several unhappy drivers and a handful of post-race conversations between playoff contenders, Almirola picked up his first win at the 1.5-mile track and the sixth of his Xfinity career.

Almirola beat Custer to the finish line by 0.660 seconds, with Chandler Smith trailing in third after raising Custer’s ire by squeezing the No. 00 Ford into the outside wall as Custer chased Smith for the lead — before Almirola made his late-race run.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

To seal the win, Almirola had to overcome a brush with the outside wall on Lap 124 and a resulting cut tire that forced him to the pits. An opportune caution that interrupted a cycle of green-flag stops on Lap 145 was all Almirola needed to get back on equal footing with the other contenders.

Almirola is the fourth driver to win two races this season in the No. 20 JGR Toyota, joining Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek and Ryan Truex.

“I’m wore out,” said Almirola, who passed Custer for the lead on Lap 197 of 200. “That was a hard day at the office for a guy that’s been sitting on the couch. I just pushed too hard there when we had the issue on pit road (a slow stop), and I got in the fence and cut the right-rear tire down.

“I knew I had to put my head down and go to work after that. We got lucky to get the caution when we did, and we were out of tires, so the fact that it went green there to the end (for the final 49 laps)… that’s where we were strong. We were really strong on the long runs.”

After the race, Custer had a brief conversation with Smith and vowed revenge.

“Everybody wants to try and talk afterwards,” Custer said. “At the end of the day, he put me in the fence, and he’s going to pay for it.”

Smith countered that he didn’t believe Custer ever had position to his outside.

“We’re racing for the win and five extra playoff points,” said Smith, who led 114 laps. “You’ve got a very, very valid statement, I understand, but I also wouldn’t change what I did, because I was giving myself the best shot to win.”

MORE: Custer, Smith hash out differences post-race

Non-playoff driver Connor Zilisch finished fourth, followed by Sheldon Creed, who improved his position in the playoff standings by four spots with his seventh top five in the last nine races.

Pole winner Brandon Jones, who didn’t make the postseason, was sixth, followed by playoff drivers Austin Hill, Shane van Gisbergen, Jesse Love and Riley Herbst.

In another post-race conversation, Hill apologized to Herbst for Lap 90 contact that sent Herbst’s Ford spinning through the infield grass at the end of the second stage. In yet another tête-à-tête between playoff drivers, Sammy Smith took AJ Allmendinger to task for early contact that damaged Smith’s Chevrolet.

Smith finished 22nd and heads to next Saturday’s playoff race at Talladega 12th in the standings, 23 points below the cut line for the Round of 8.

Allmendinger (17th Saturday) and Parker Kligerman (12th) are 10th and 11th in the Playoff standings, 13 and 15 points below the cutoff, respectively.

The shockingly bad luck haunting top-seeded Justin Allgaier continued in force on Saturday. Racing in close quarters with Creed after a restart on Lap 70, Allgaier’s No. 7 Chevrolet broke loose, slid across traffic and nosed into the inside wall on the backstretch.

After frantic repairs, Allgaier attempted to return to the race, but a cut left-front tire sent him into the outside wall and out of action in 36th place.

WATCH: Allgaier’s crunch equals early retirement

Allgaier’s exit came eight days after a series of accidents knocked him out of the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway and cost him the regular-season championship.

“I don’t know if I’ve had a stretch of races that have been like these last three or four weeks,” said Allgaier. “We’re not out of it by any stretch. Obviously, that’s why you do all the work to get all the bonus points you can.

“We’ve got a long road the next two weeks. I’ve got the team that can do it. We’ve just got to go have some luck on our side.”

Allgaier fell from first to ninth in the standings and trails Herbst by one point in the battle for the final berth in the Round of 8.

Custer now leads the series by five points over Chandler Smith, with Hill 15 points back. Fourth-place Sam Mayer, who ran 13th at Kansas, is 28 points behind Custer and three points ahead of Creed in fifth.

Van Gisbergen and Love are sixth and seventh in the playoff standings, respectively eight and three points above cut line for the next round.

The Xfinity Series will continue the Round of 12 next Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Note: Post-race inspection in the Xfinity Series garage was completed without major issue at Kansas Speedway, affirming Almirola’s win. Two cars were found with a single unsecured lug nut each in a post-race check — the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet driven by Brandon Jones, and the No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevy driven by Shane van Gisbergen. Those infractions should result in monetary fines to each team’s crew chief next week, in accordance with guidelines in the NASCAR Rule Book.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Every round in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, four drivers have to sit below the elimination line. For the second straight time in the 2024 playoffs, Southern 500 winner Chase Briscoe will be on the outside looking in as he enters the Round of 12, seven points out and last of the title-eligible drivers.

Joining Briscoe are Austin Cindric (minus-4), Daniel Suárez (minus-6) and Alex Bowman (minus-7). All three of them started the opening round above the cutoff and fended off the likes of Ty Gibbs, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Harrison Burton to advance.

Briscoe was the only Round of 16 driver to enter the playoffs outside of the picture and race his way in. The deck will be stacked against Briscoe once again Sunday at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), a track where he’s yet to score a top 10 in seven starts but the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Ford driver isn’t hitting the panic button as he can lean on a 2022 run where he scored his best result at the track (13th) that was on the path to Briscoe making it all the way to the Round of 8 that year.

RELATED: Sunday’s starting lineup | Kansas schedule

“We definitely need to try to maximize this race,” Briscoe said. “I do think if we could come out of here 12th, 13th, get some stage points, it should put you at least in the hunt, right? Like you’re not going to start at a huge deficit like we did at Atlanta. So that’s for sure a focus. This has probably not been our best race track so we got some work to do but I’m confident that we’re gonna be probably the best we’ve been here in a long time. I feel like we’ve made a lot of gains on our mile-and-a-half stuff. Hopefully, we can come out of here and qualify good starting today and it just makes your life so much easier tomorrow, getting stage points and things like that. Definitely need to start this round off right…kind of the opposite of what we did last round.”

Briscoe, indeed, had a good qualifying run Saturday as he’ll roll off ninth for the race.

Cindric enters as the first driver out of the Round of 8 but is coming off two top 10s and a 13th-place result in the first three playoff races that paid out 103 points to the No. 2 Team Penske Ford driver to move him forward.

With a drafting track and road course recurring in the Round of 12, Cindric will aim to play game manager at Kansas as he’s finished outside the top 30 in the last three events at the 1.5-mile track and will start 17th on Sunday.

“I think, for us, it’s really replicating a similar performance from the Round of 16,” Cindric said Wednesday in a Zoom teleconference. “You look at the numbers and what we did for the past round is probably the bare minimum of what’s gonna get us to advance for this round. From a points perspective, it definitely gets more challenging, especially the deficit we have to the top four or five guys. It definitely becomes more of an issue when you start to eliminate guys that are in a similar space as far as points go as what we are. Otherwise, a win obviously is what you want to do, especially to be able to do it in the first two races. That makes things a lot easier, but I think, for us, I still think this is a no-mistakes round, this is don’t take yourself out of it and race within our limits.”

A runner-up finish at Atlanta and a clean day at Watkins Glen for Daniel Suárez were required for him to advance to the Round of 12 after Bristol was all but a nightmare for the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing driver.

After a poor qualifying effort at the short track, Suárez swiftly fell a lap down and never recovered, resulting in a 31st-place result while four laps down. He needed every one of the 73 points earned in the first two playoff races to keep Gibbs at bay for the final transfer spot into the Round of 12.

Entering Kansas, Suárez isn’t interested in hearing about his current position and is focused on maximizing his car’s performance on Sunday.

“I, personally, don’t think points right now,” Suárez said. “It’s too early. I’m gonna just go out there and race, maximize the potential for the race car. If that’s good enough to win the race, great. If that’s good enough for a top five, good. So we just have to go out there and just focus one race at a time. Talladega is very unpredictable. Here is unpredictable. We’re gonna be running very close to the wall. There’s a lot of opportunities in this round and now we have to try to maximize that.”

There hasn’t been a 1.5-mile event since May and while Suárez finished 27th at Kansas in the spring and 24th in the Coca-Cola 600, the two-time series winner is confident in having a good performance Sunday and he’s already stepping in the right direction with a 10th-place qualifying effort.

“I thought in Darlington we were pretty decent but it’s different,” Suárez said. “In the Coke 600, I thought we were decent. We had pretty good pace. I believe that we were a top-10 car in the Coke 600. We didn’t get to finish strong because we had a penalty in the last pit stop before they called the race. But I feel good about it. A lot of things happened in May. We have to just go out there and perform and do our thing. I believe that our team is very, very well prepared. I believe that maybe the best-prepared team out there based on how everything works, how everything that we did from Monday through Thursday and I’m looking forward to hopefully see that reflected on track.”

suárez takes a photo with a fan
Chad Cushing | For NASCAR Digital Media

A driver who could really break out this round is Bowman. Kansas, Talladega and the Roval are all among the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports driver’s best tracks.

Bowman has four consecutive top 10s at Kansas, he finished fifth at Talladega in the spring and owns the best average finish among active drivers at the Roval with a 6.4 clip.

If it wasn’t for teammate Kyle Larson’s pure dominance last weekend at Bristol, you could make the case that the No. 48 was the best of his organization in the opening round but Bowman says he’s just focused on maintaining strong performances weekly.

“I think you just have to operate at a high level every week and everywhere we go has the same opportunity for points,” Bowman said. “I think this round plays out really well for us, probably better race tracks than the previous round for me personally and hopefully we can just continue to operate at a high level and have a lot of pace.”

Bowman has gotten used to the general consensus counting him out of a deep postseason run, but the Tucson, Arizona native has learned to ignore the outside chatter and figures it’s something that will be a part of his Cup career down the road.

“That’s never gonna change,” Bowman said. “I’m not too caught up in what other people say and certainly just need to continue to execute at the level that we have been. I don’t see that ever changing in my career. It’s kind of just par for the course so just out here doing my thing.”

Posted on by Staff Report

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Martinsville Speedway

  • Starting lineup
Position Car No. Driver
1 4 Kyle Dudley
2 8A Carson Kvapil
3 26 Peyton Sellers
4 22 Connor Hall
5 29A Stuart Crews
6 11 Buddy Isles Jr.
7 87 Mike Looney
8 03 Lee Pulliam
9 77B Treyten Lapcevich
10 17A Daniel Silvestri
11 23 Kade Brown
12 17B Stacy Puryear
13 15B Ryan Millington
14 2B Matt Waltz
15 16 Casey Kelley
16 12 Jake Crum
17 15A Camden Gullie
18 51A Timothy Peters
19 29 Brent Crews
20 7C Tristian McKee
21 6 Bobby McCarty
22 5A Carter Langley
23 44 Conner Jones
24 95A Sam Yarbrough
25 04 Ronnie Bassett Jr.
26 45 Mason Diaz
27 77 Trevor Ward
28 14 Jared Fryar
29 95 Jacob Heafner
30 33 Dillon Harville
31 5 Dexter Canipe Jr.
32 71 Aaron Donnelly
33 4A Parker Eatmon
34 77A Blake Stallings
35 18A Jason York
36 1B Clay Jones
37 55 Landon Pembelton
38 1A Andrew Grady
39 88A Doug Barnes Jr.
40 51 Ryan Matthews