Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Parker Kligerman is a NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs driver. Riley Herbst — despite every bit of determination he displayed Saturday — is left on the outside looking in.

Kligerman finished fourth in the Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, snagging the final berth in the 12-driver postseason grid by 25 points over Herbst. Herbst suffered a double dose of flat right-front tires – coincidentally stemming from contact with Kligerman – and finished 23rd, two laps down.

RELATED: Race results | Weekend schedule

Kligerman entered the day trailing Herbst by one point, collected a total of nine stage points and capitalized on a fast No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet. But all that effort nearly went for naught: Second-place finisher Brandon Jones was in a must-win situation to qualify for the playoffs, and a victory from the JR Motorsports driver would have eliminated Kligerman from contention.

Instead, John Hunter Nemechek held on for the win, allowing one final position in the playoffs for either Kligerman or Herbst.

“I was the biggest John Hunter Nemechek fan on the planet,” Kligerman laughed. “As I saw the No. 9 (Jones) fire off, I was like, ‘Oh no! We’ve done all we should do on points. We’re so close. I don’t think I could beat the 20, but the 9 looks like he might.’ And then obviously the 20 was just so dominant.”

The last two drivers Kligerman raced Saturday were Austin Hill – the Regular Season Champion – and Sheldon Creed, teammates at Richard Childress Racing, which shares an alliance with Big Machine Racing. As Kligerman battled Hill inside the top five, Creed came storming around the top side to take third away from both of them.

“The 2 (Creed) kind of crept up on us and took third,” Kligerman said. “I really wanted third place, but … that last run, I had to just be smart, really, really smart. And so I drove the smartest race I thought I could drive that put us in a position to not have anything stupid happen, keep us the highest position if we get a late-race restart and go on in the playoffs.”

On the other side of the elimination line was Herbst, who endured a trying month that included one DNF, mechanical issues and three finishes of 23rd or worse in the past four races. Adding to a regular season filled with twists for Herbst, the No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing team made a change at its crew chief position in June, with Davin Restino taking the reins as Richard Boswell was moved to the NASCAR Cup Series.

“It doesn’t just start today,” Herbst said. “We had a crew chief change before Nashville, had a bunch of mechanical failures. I shot myself in the foot a few races. So it’s here or there, and it’s just all adding up. We didn’t make it, but it’s not the end of the world.”

Riley Herbst reacts after exiting his No. 98 Ford on pit road at Kansas Speedway
Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Studios

Herbst’s Kansas efforts were monumental but not enough to overcome relentless adversity.

His path crossed with Kligerman too literally on a Lap 65 restart. Kligerman lined up third in the outside lane but struggled on his shift to third gear. Creed and Herbst were the two cars behind the No. 48.

“I’d have to go back and look, but he (Creed) went up to avoid it, so I went to go plug (the) middle,” Herbst recalled. “And I was already wide open at that point, and he was still spinning the tires or still trying to get it in gear, and I hit him (Kligerman) with my right-front.

“Tore the whole right-front fender off, cut the tire and from then on, it was over.”

Herbst lost two laps as he pit and received repairs, but quick cautions and brilliant driving saw him rally from 32nd all the way back to the top 10.

But it wasn’t much later that Herbst suffered a second flat right-front tire, effectively ending any hopes of a comeback.

“The right-front splitter was getting ripped off, and the fender was flapping,” Herbst said. “But looking at lap times and listening to lap times, we were probably a top-three race car lap-time-wise.

“I knew that the 48 scored points in the first two stages, so we couldn’t just outrun him. I was more than likely going to have to win. But we just needed a few adjustments to run with the 20 and the 9, and I felt like we were good enough there. Then ultimately, in dirty air, we just kind of hit the wall.”

Kligerman’s triumph rewards a return to full-time competition for the first time since 2013 after years of piecemealing seasons together across NASCAR’s three national series. He and the Big Machine Racing outfit have impressed all season, but particularly through the second half of the regular season.

Kligerman netted 10 top-10 finishes in the final 13 races of the 26-race regular season, capped with three top fives in his last four starts.

“I think it more validates like the last 12 (weeks),” Kligerman said, “where I’ve been telling everyone that we’ve been really good, we’re executing at a high level. And we just didn’t exactly have everything to show for it. But I could see it. I could see it happening. I could feel it. I could see it as we crept up on the bubble.

“And I just knew if we just did what we did today – that’s what we’ve been doing. You know, we just, we probably had a little faster car today. And this was a new car, so you hope to see that sort of thing. So yeah, I think today was a day where we executed at the highest level we ever have, for sure, from pit crew, everyone. My pit crew was on it today, thanks to them. And we had a fast car with it.”

The postseason officially begins Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). Kligerman enters the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs as the No. 12 seed – last on the grid. But he’s in – and only six points shy of Sheldon Creed for the final position above the provisional elimination line.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – There were no mixed feelings on Parker Kligerman’s part — he was ecstatic that John Hunter Nemechek asserted absolute domination over the rest of the field in Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway.

Nemechek’s sixth victory of the season assured Kligerman, who finished a strong fourth, of a berth in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, which open next Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Official results | Weekend schedule

Kligerman outlasted Riley Herbst, who entered the race with a one-point advantage for the final Playoff spot but ran afoul of the left rear of Kligerman’s car after a restart in Stage 2.

Nemechek did all he could to overtake Austin Hill for the Regular Season Championship. He won the first and second stages and beat runner-up Brandon Jones to the finish line by a whopping 7.521 seconds. Hill ran fifth to secure the regular-season title by five points after leading by 23 entering the race.

After Herbst had trouble, the only circumstance that could have kept Kligerman out of the playoffs was a victory by Jones. Nemechek would have none of that.

“(Crew chief) Ben (Beshore) and all the guys made the right adjustments all day,” said Nemechek, who won for the second time at Kansas and the eighth time in his career. “They brought a really fast hot rod. … Overall, just super pumped, super ecstatic.

“I’m looking forward to getting the Playoffs started next week at Bristol. We came in here trying to get the Regular Season Championship. I thought that we were going to have a 60-point day this weekend, and that’s what we did. We controlled what we could control. We did everything that we possibly could.

“So, let’s go to the playoffs — I’m ready.”

MORE: John Hunter Nemechek discusses what win means to him

Sheldon Creed finished third, 11.881 seconds behind Nemechek, followed by Kligerman and Hill.

“I was definitely the biggest John Hunter fan on the last run there,” quipped Kligerman, who finished 25 points ahead of Herbst for the final playoff spot in a battle that featured substantial swings throughout the season. “I’m really proud of this whole Big Machine Racing team. … We executed at a high level.

“With what I’ve seen do for the last 12 weeks, I felt like, if we could just get in the playoffs, and we bring this going forward, we’re going to race for a championship.”

Just short of midway through Stage 2, much of the suspense disappeared from the race for the final Playoff spot. On a restart on Lap 65, Kligerman had difficulty getting his No. 48 Chevrolet into gear. Creed, immediately behind Kligerman, ran into the back of the 48 and moved to the right.

Herbst, who started two cars behind his rival for the final berth, clipped the left-rear of Kligerman’s car with the right-front of the No. 98 Ford, cutting his right-front tire and damaging the quarter panel.

Herbst lost two laps on pit road changing tires, but he regained both circuits in short order, taking a wave-around at the end of Stage 2 and as the beneficiary during the eighth caution for a dramatic Lap 97 wreck at the front of the field involving Creed, Sammy Smith, pole winner Justin Allgaier and Jones.

Back on the lead lap, Herbst charged through the field and reached the ninth position, but another flat right-front tire forced him to pit road on Lap 127 and ended his chances to secure a Playoff berth.

MORE: At-track photos: Kansas

As it turned out, Daniel Hemric clinched the 11th of 12 playoff spots by starting the race, leaving Kligerman and Herbst to battle for the last one. They join Nemechek, Hill, Allgaier, Cole Custer, Sam Mayer, Chandler Smith, Creed, Josh Berry, Sammy Smith and Jeb Burton, all of whom had qualified for the playoffs before Saturday’s race.

Though Hill secured the regular-season title, he feels his Richard Childress Racing team has work to do to match Nemechek’s pace in the upcoming seven playoff races.

“Just happy that we were able to bring home the Regular Season Championship, get the extra 15 bonus points — which is huge,” Hill said. “But we’ve got to go to work. We’ve got to be better. The 20 (Nemechek) was the class of the field all day.

“Really kind of stunk up the show there, so we’ve got to go back to the drawing board, figure out what we’ve got to do better for next time.”

MORE: Austin Hill reacts to winning regular-season title

Berry, Brett Moffitt, Derek Kraus, Joe Graf Jr. and Kaz Grala finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

The seven-race playoffs open Friday with the Food City 300 (7:30 p.m. ET, USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Note: Inspection in the Xfinity Series garage at Kansas was completed without major issue, confirming Nemechek’s victory. NASCAR officials discovered three teams with unsecured lug nuts in a post-race check. The No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Sheldon Creed was found with two unsecured lugs, which should result in a one-race suspension for crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz and a fine in next week’s penalty report. Two teams each had one unsecured lug nut — the No. 21 RCR Chevrolet of Austin Hill and the No. 27 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevy of Jeb Burton. Those infractions should result in a monetary fine for each team’s crew chief, according to guidelines in the NASCAR Rule Book.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Staff Report

Winchester Fair

Monadnock Speedway

  • Qualifying results
Pos No. Name Sponsor Best Tm Best Speed
1 51 Justin Bonsignore Phoenix Communications Inc. 12.718 70.766
2 64 Austin Beers AP Marquadt & Sons/Lumiere Electrical/Andrew James Interiors 12.728 70.71
3 06 Sam Rameau Quality Fleet Services/Dennison Lubricants 12.762 70.522
4 92 Anthony Nocella Nocella Paving/K and D Associates/Airgas 12.805 70.285
5 7 Doug Coby Mayhew Tools 12.812 70.247
6 16 Ron Silk Blue Mountain Machine & Future Homes 12.826 70.17
7 22 Kyle Bonsignore Chalew Performance/MTT/Munns Auto 12.827 70.164
8 25 Brian Robie* Maurice Enterprises 12.828 70.159
9 21 Jacob Perry* The Royal Screw Machine Co. 12.83 70.148
10 32 Tyler Rypkema Northeast Driling/MUSCO Lighting 12.897 69.784
11 3 Jake Johnson* Propane Plus/Lin’s Propane Trucks 12.953 69.482
12 82 Craig Lutz Horton Avenue Materials 12.966 69.412
13 6 Woody Pitkat Koopman Lumbar 13.004 69.209
14 43 Matt Kimball* Adam LaPoint Electrical/Edmunds Ace Hardware 13.023 69.109
15 59 Brett Meservey* BNP Machine 13.031 69.066
16 18 Ken Heagy Buoy One Seafood Market & Restaurant 13.228 68.037
17 81 Nathan Wenzel* 1812 Paint and Auto Body 13.271 67.817
18 1 Cory Plummer* Apex Racing/Gene’s Auto Service 13.351 67.411
19 01 Melissa Fifield Pine Knoll Auto Sales 13.735 65.526
Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers Kyle Busch and William Byron both found trouble in Saturday’s practice session at Kansas Speedway. Busch will start at the rear of the field for Sunday’s race after an incident forced him to miss qualifying. Byron won’t fall to the rear, keeping his ninth-place starting spot after NASCAR officials found a manufacturing issue with a part his team replaced.

Busch’s trouble came midway through the 20-minute session for Group B drivers when his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevy snapped loose through Turn 4 and scraped the outside retaining wall. He nursed the car back to pit road for repairs, and the team opted to push it back to the Cup Series garage.

Busch did not post a qualifying lap, which will put him at the back of the 36-car field for the green flag of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

RELATED: What to Watch | Kansas weekend schedule

“Just like every other weekend. Always put in a hole, always put behind, always have to come and dig ourselves out,” Busch told NBC Sports. “So, hate it for all the guys, I mean, the car was really good, had good longevity there. We were just running laps and run some pretty good laps comparatively to the rest of our group that we were with at that time. Just gonna fine-tune on some things in order to get ready for qualifying, and here we are starting last again. It just never ends. I don’t know what to do to change it.”

Byron turned eight laps in practice before he brought his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to pit road shortly after the start of the first practice session at the 1.5-mile track, and his crew discovered a broken suspension component. The No. 24 team repaired the part, which allowed Byron to make a qualifying attempt.

An examination and research by NASCAR officials determined that a manufacturing issue affected the upper and lower control arms on the No. 24 Chevy and that the problem was not a team issue. Replacing the part was not ruled as an unapproved adjustment, and Byron is scheduled to start ninth in Sunday’s 400-miler.

Byron told NBC Sports that he felt the issue in his steering during practice and that he was thankful to have it happen in a Saturday preliminary session rather than when points are on the line Sunday.

“I think that’s the fear, for sure,” said Byron, a five-time winner this season. “I mean, it’s better to be fortunate right now and not have that happen in the race. You know, it sucks that we don’t have much of a prediction of what we have for the race. But we got eight laps, and we have pretty good pace. So we just got to kind of go to work and figure out what we’re gonna have tomorrow, pretty much based on the 5 and the 9 (teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, respectively). So try to look at their notes and see what their long-run pace was like, and we’ll just go from there.”

The race is the middle event in the three-race Round of 16, the opening elimination phase of the 10-race postseason.

Hendrick Motorsports crew works on the No. 24 Chevrolet during practice at Kansas Speedway
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios
Posted on by Staff Report

Winchester Fair

Monadnock Speedway

  • Practice results
Pos. Car No. Driver Sponsor Best Time Best Speed In Lap Laps Diff.
1 64 Austin Beers AP Marquadt & Sons/Lumiere Electrical/Andrew James Interiors 12.708 70.822 64 73  —
2 51 Justin Bonsignore Phoenix Communications Inc. 12.717 70.771 63 64 0.009
3 7 Doug Coby Mayhew Tools 12.763 70.516 52 62 0.055
4 16 Ron Silk Blue Mountain Machine & Future Homes 12.811 70.252 43 62 0.103
5 82 Craig Lutz Horton Avenue Materials 12.831 70.143 55 57 0.123
6 06 Sam Rameau Quality Fleet Services/Dennison Lubricants 12.844 70.072 6 28 0.136
7 43 Matt Kimball* Adam LaPoint Electrical/Edmunds Ace Hardware 12.879 69.881 7 70 0.171
8 92 Anthony Nocella Nocella Paving/K and D Associates/Airgas 12.883 69.86 42 47 0.175
9 6 Woody Pitkat Koopman Lumbar 12.908 69.724 27 29 0.2
10 22 Kyle Bonsignore Chalew Performance/MTT/Munns Auto 12.93 69.606 46 53 0.222
11 25 Brian Robie* Maurice Enterprises 12.932 69.595 51 55 0.224
12 32 Tyler Rypkema Northeast Driling/MUSCO Lighting 12.943 69.536 35 57 0.235
13 59 Brett Meservey* BNP Machine 12.946 69.52 49 51 0.238
14 21 Jacob Perry* The Royal Screw Machine Co. 12.948 69.509 9 42 0.24
15 3 Jake Johnson* Propane Plus/Lin’s Propane Trucks 12.959 69.45 38 59 0.251
16 81 Nathan Wenzel* 1812 Paint and Auto Body 13.114 68.629 38 51 0.406
17 18 Ken Heagy Buoy One Seafood Market & Restaurant 13.227 68.043 37 41 0.519
18 1 Cory Plummer* Apex Racing/Gene’s Auto Service 13.312 67.608 9 43 0.604
19 01 Melissa Fifield Pine Knoll Auto Sales 13.929 64.613 15 19 1.221
Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Denny Hamlin’s recent contract negotiations with Joe Gibbs Racing triggered moments of reflection for the 42-year-old veteran racer.

Those career discussions, of course, evolved into a multiyear agreement with the only organization for which Hamlin has ever driven, announced Aug. 30 and solidifying Hamlin in the No. 11 Toyota for more time to come.

MORE: Kansas schedule | Playoff standings

The Virginia native first set foot in the NASCAR Cup Series in October 2005 — fittingly at Kansas Speedway, where he will race Sunday in the Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Nearer to the end of his career than its beginning, Hamlin said his perspective on contracts has indeed evolved since he first entered stock-car racing’s upper echelons.

What they signify now, he said, is more related to what’s left ahead on track than monetary gain.

“When you are younger, you see it as a financial stabilizer,” Hamlin said in a Saturday press conference. “For me, it’s how many more Daytona 500s do I have left? How many more opportunities do I have to win certain events that are special to me personally or help me accomplish a goal that I’m trying to accomplish? It really puts in perspective the urgency of accomplishing as much as you can here in the short term.

“When you are younger, in your 20s or low 30s, you have so much runway, where if you don’t get it this time, I’ll get it the next (contract period). I’ve been very, very fortunate in the financial planning that my team has put together – we never planned past (age) 40 as far as income was concerned, so this is all me telling myself, how many more opportunities will I have?”

There is no definitive answer to that question, but his resume already stands tall with three Daytona 500 championships, three Southern 500 victories at Darlington Raceway and a Coca-Cola 600 triumph at Charlotte Motor Speedway helping make up his 50 total Cup wins. Going out quietly is something he hopes to avoid.

“I want to compete at a high level in my final year. I don’t want to kind of trickle off. I’m way too competitive to do it,” Hamlin said. “There is no way I could go to the race track not knowing that I could win. I understand there will be a day when things fall off. Things get slower for you. You will never know when that day will come, but now that I’ve been doing it so long – it definitely puts a sense of urgency in years like this where, man, I’ve got all of the things I need to compete each and every week.

“This could be one of the best shots we’ve had to win it all. You really put an emphasis on it, knowing there’s only so many total races left. And if you want to get to your personal goals, you’ve got to capitalize on every single weekend.”

Cars and teams also evolve so quickly in NASCAR that competitors understand success can be fleeting — gone as quickly as it comes. Hamlin dominated much of the Southern 500 last weekend at Darlington, leading 177 of 367 laps, but a loose wheel in the closing 100 laps mired Hamlin deep in the field and out of winning contention.

MORE: Hamlin’s strong day unravels at Darlington

The sting of missed opportunities resonates that much more when fewer races remain out the windshield.

“I would say it’s natural to get a little more emotional when those situations come about because, like last week – how many more chances at the Southern 500 will I have to win?” Hamlin said. “We don’t even know – will our cars compete next year? Will we be as strong? No one knows. There’s so many ebbs and flows in the sport, so you always want to take advantage of the opportunities.

“(Crew chief) Chris Gabehart keeps a strict tally of when our running or winning capability is a one. Last week marked our 59th race-winning-capability weekend. We haven’t won nearly that many – 59 times. That is a lot since 2019. When we look at why we haven’t, I feel comfortable saying I’m doing all I can do. Sometimes, these things are just out of our hands.

“I can only do my job to the best of my ability and continue to try to bring the team up. I really feel confident – no matter what the outcome – that I’m not letting any weekends slip away. I wish I honestly had the discipline way back when, in the early 30s and 20s, that I do now with my work ethic. It’s paid huge dividends.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Christopher Bell earned a second chance on Saturday.

For the second straight NASCAR Cup Series playoff race, Bell will start from the pole position after a blistering lap at 180.276 mph (29.954 seconds) in the final round of qualifying for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

RELATED: Starting lineup | Weekend schedule

Bell beat last Sunday’s Darlington winner Kyle Larson (179.826 mph) by 0.075 seconds to win his fourth Busch Light Pole Award of the season, his second at Kansas and the eighth of his career.

After starting from the top spot in last Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500, Bell suffered a litany of issues — from a slow first pit stop to hard contact with the outside wall to a five-car wreck that collected his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota late in the race.

As a result of his 23rd-place finish in the Round of 16 opener, Bell came to Kansas 12th in the Cup standings, just one point ahead of Bubba Wallace in 13th. The pole position at the 1.5-mile speedway gives him a chance at redemption.

“That was a lot of fun,” Bell said. “Qualifying here is very intense. That’s certainly all we had. I felt very good in practice today in race trim. Week after week we come to the race track with cars that are capable of racing for wins. …

“(Winning the pole) definitely takes a little bit of pressure off. If you’ve got a fast car, you can just go out there and run your pace. Clean air feels a lot better than being back in the pack.”

Martin Truex Jr. qualified third at 178.767 mph, followed by Chase Elliott (178.648 mph) and Tyler Reddick (178.495 mph).

Bell knew a sub-30-second lap was a possibility after seeing Ross Chastain turn the fastest circuit of the day in the first round of time trials in 29.925 seconds (180.451 mph). Chastain was sixth fastest in the final round at 178.324 mph.

But how does a driver eliminate the sorts of mistakes that cost him dearly in the first playoff race?

“Controlling what you can control,” Bell said. “I don’t know how many people, but (there’s) a handful of people on the team that just have to control what they can control, and I’m a big part of that equation.

“So last week, I made a mistake early in the race that ruined our finish and, yeah, that was me not doing my job, and I’m glad I get another opportunity this week to try.”

Michael McDowell, the only Ford driver to make the final round, will start seventh, with Austin Dillon eighth.

William Byron was ninth fastest in the final round, posting a lap after his crew fixed a suspension issue that surfaced during Saturday’s practice.

Wallace will take the green flag from the 10th position.

Playoff driver Kyle Busch will start from the rear of the field for the second straight race after a flat tire sent him into the outside wall during practice, necessitating repairs to his No. 8 Chevrolet, which did not make a qualifying run.

Ty Gibbs suffered a similar fate during practice and will start from the rear in a backup car.

Playoff drivers starting outside the top 10 include: Joey Logano 11th, Brad Keselowski 12th, Chris Buescher 13th, Denny Hamlin 14th, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 16th, Ryan Blaney 17th and Kevin Harvick 20th.

Elliott and Dillon are the only drivers in the top 10 not competing for the drivers’ championship, though Elliott’s No. 9 Chevrolet is running for the owners’ title.

Playoff-eligible drivers swept the top three spots in qualifying and six of the top seven. Sunday’s 400-mile event is the second of three races in the Round of 16, the opening elimination portion of the 10-race playoffs.

Tyler Reddick tops Kansas practice

Playoff driver Tyler Reddick topped NASCAR Cup Series practice Saturday at Kansas Speedway.

Reddick drove the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota to the top of the single-lap speed chart with a clocking of 178.808 mph at the 1.5-mile Kansas City track. He was also fastest in the consecutive 10-lap average category.

MORE: Practice results | At-track photos: Kansas

William Byron posted the second-fastest lap with his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet before pulling to pit road with a broken suspension piece. His team was able to repair the car before qualifying, where he was among the five fastest in his group.

Bubba Wallace, the defending race winner and Reddick’s 23XI Racing teammate was third-fastest, with Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney rounding out the top five. Playoff drivers swept the first five positions on the practice leaderboard and seven of the top eight.

Kyle Busch also found trouble in the practice session, scraping the outside retaining wall in Turn 4 with his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. The car’s right-rear tire went flat, and he did not post a qualifying lap.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Reid Spencer

The opening race in the Round of 16 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs hardly could have gone worse for Michael McDowell.

After starting ninth, McDowell struggled with the handling on his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford and faded as the race progressed. He failed to score points in either of the first two stages.

The coup de grace came when McDowell was collected in a five-car wreck late in the race and exited in 32nd place, earning just five points in the opener.

McDowell comes to the second Round of 16 race at Kansas Speedway 16th in the playoff standings, 19 points behind Christopher Bell in 12th, the cutoff position for the next round. That doesn’t mean, however, that McDowell is ready to take desperate measures.

RELATED: Cup standings | Kansas weekend schedule

“Obviously, Darlington didn’t go like we hoped it would go,” McDowell said. “Our goal was to go in there and not make any mistakes, and unfortunately we did and ended up crashing out there at the end. It’s not a panic ‘911,’ must-win, have to go extreme strategy or extreme aggression because there’s still room for other teams and other drivers to have some mistakes.

“But we definitely have to go out there and run top 10 to top five the next two weeks, if we don’t win to put ourselves in position. It’s definitely an uphill battle, but I don’t feel like we’re out of the game. I don’t feel like we’re out of the fight.

“We’ve had speed all year. It’s just putting it all together. We’ll probably need a little bit of misfortune from some other competitors. We’ve seen that in the first round before, particularly at Darlington and Kansas, so there’s a lot of opportunities to not get it right.”

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

Ross Chastain’s return to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs got off to a rousing start one week ago at Darlington Raceway with a top-five finish. But the journey to that fifth-place result was, well, a journey in itself. All are part of the process at Trackhouse Racing.

Last year’s inaugural run through the Cup Series postseason produced plenty of learning moments for Chastain, crew chief Phil Surgen and the entire No. 1 Trackhouse team.

MORE: Full Kansas schedule | At-track photos

“The biggest thing that stands out is what I can control,” Chastain told NASCAR.com in a Thursday teleconference. “And last year, I could have controlled not crashing at the (Charlotte) Roval. It was a simple mental error. It was a lack of awareness and attention to my driving. And I got loose in Turn 2, the pit-out chute, and hit the wall and broke the right-rear suspension, and that could have very easily taken us out of transferring to the Round of 8. So that’s what stands out. You just can’t afford to have that.”

Of course, not only did the No. 1 Chevrolet advance through to the Round of 8 — he rode the Martinsville Speedway wall all the way into the Championship 4. These days, he’s more conscious of the positions in which he’s placing his car, capitalizing on opportunities in front of him but rarely overstepping.

“People are going to crash. We saw it at Darlington,” Chastain said. “I’m super proud that my car might have been the only playoff car without right-side damage. I had some left-rear (contact) from the 5 (Kyle Larson), but not not anything on the right side. Didn’t touch the wall all weekend.

“That’s not to say that Lap 1 of practice I couldn’t drive into Turn 1 and hit the wall at Kansas, OK? Like, I’m not getting too far ahead of myself at all. I’m not in Kansas yet, so I can’t control that. But I’m proud of that, because that’s something that I focused on for these 10 weeks is to minimize that and eliminate it as much as possible. There’s just no room for it.”

There’s also pride in the No. 1 team’s recovery from a rough start to last weekend’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, where he fell off the lead lap early but rallied to a fifth-place run — his first top five since his win at Nashville Superspeedway on June 25. That run positioned him 10th in the 16-driver playoff grid, currently 13 points above the provisional elimination line.

RELATED: Playoff standings

“We didn’t start the race or the weekend at Darlington how we wanted, but man, like just give us 500 miles of a Cup race and we’ll have a shot,” Chastain said. “And that’s what we had, right? Maybe if we had the Southern 600, we might have won it. But you know, we were just too far off to start and it just took too long to get up there, so we missed out on a lot of opportunities. But still proud — I mean, like, so pumped that we were able to do that, because it just doesn’t happen much anymore.”

The result was a product of trusting the processes Chastain and Surgen have built over their past three years together, Chastain said. The two began working in tandem in 2021 when Chastain took over the No. 42 Chevrolet at Chip Ganassi Racing. When Justin Marks purchased CGR’s shop and charters to transition them into the Trackhouse Racing fold, much of what was the No. 42 team became the modern-day No. 1 team.

The environment inside Trackhouse this year — with Chastain in the playoffs and teammate Daniel Suárez not — is admittedly different than it was a season ago when both teams qualified for the postseason.

“There’s no way around it. We know it,” Chastain said.

But Suárez showed strength at Darlington before a late-race dustup with Alex Bowman that eliminated both of them from contention, a sign of the shared mindset within the Concord, North Carolina, race shop.

“The 99 (Suárez) was just as fast at Darlington as they would have been if they weren’t in the playoffs,” Chastain said. “So I am totally confident that they’re going to continue to just help us and we’re going to help them. We’re still keeping our same processes. We’re still going about the business of bringing rocket ships to the race track, just like he was in the playoffs or if he’s not; if I am in the playoffs or I was not.”

Up next is Kansas Speedway, host of the Hollywood Casino 400 set for Sunday afternoon (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). Since the Next Gen car debuted in 2022, Chastain has finished seventh, seventh and fifth in three Kansas races.

Chastain noted the similarities between the 1.5-mile Kansas and 2-mile Michigan International Speedway — both smooth, both wide, D-shaped ovals. Chastain’s qualifying efforts at both tracks year: third at Kansas, second at Michigan.

“Kansas is just wide,” Chastain said. “Like really, my only policy for what lane I don’t run in Kansas is the lane somebody in front of me is in. I just go wherever they’re not. And that might be lower, that might be higher than I’m planning on, but the only rule I have is don’t follow them because there’s enough lanes to find my own. So through the corner when we’re all packed up, it’s really just about the car right in front of me and finding some clean air.”

For now, Chastain enters Kansas with another chance to chase the coveted NASCAR Cup Series Championship.

“I think we’ve got a shot,” Chastain said. “That’s all we asked for. We just asked for an opportunity.”