KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Leading 108 of 134 laps, Zane Smith dominated Saturday night’s Heart of America 200 and staved off a late charge from Ty Majeski at Kansas Speedway to record his NASCAR Camping World Series-leading third victory of the season.
After a restart with eight laps left, Smith pulled away from Majeski and crossed the finish line with a comfortable 1.653 seconds to spare. The runner-up finish was a career-best for Majeski.
“It was really just an unbelievable truck,” said Smith, who won for the first time at Kansas and the sixth time in his career. “So dang cool. That was one of my easier ones I’ve ever had to win, but that late-race restart scared me a little bit.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t have another one there, because I’m stuck in fourth (gear), so sorry for no burnout.”
Smith’s No. 38 Ford appeared headed for an even easier victory before Dean Thompson spun on the backstretch to cause the fourth caution of the evening on Lap 121.
That gave Majeski a shot at his first series victory, but Smith’s F-150 was simply too strong.
“We were really close,” Majeski said. “We kept easing on the adjustments all night, getting the balance better on every run. The track was freeing up, and we were just a little too free, so we kept making small changes.
“The sun went down, and I think we over-adjusted a little on that last stop — couldn’t attack it, just a little bit too free.”
Grant Enfinger ran third after charging from seventh in the final eight laps. Chandler Smith finished fourth after running out of fuel at the end of Stage 1 and losing a lap. Christian Eckes came home fifth, followed by pole winner John Hunter Nemechek, Matt DiBenedetto, Derek Kraus, Matt Crafton and Ben Rhodes.
Corey Heim led 18 laps and won Stage 1, but his No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota scraped the outside wall on Lap 100, eventually leading to a cut right-front tire and a 33rd-place result.
Stewart Friesen started from the rear in the No. 52 Chevrolet after Bubba Wallace practiced and qualified his truck. Scheduled to arrive in Kansas City on Friday, Friesen instead spent the night in New York’s LaGuardia Airport after his flight was canceled.
Another delay with his connection in Chicago prevented him from arriving at the track in time to qualify the truck. Friesen ran as high as fourth before finishing 14th.
Hailie Deegan came home 17th, matching her best result of the season.
The Truck Series’ next race is May 20 at Texas Motor Speedway at 8:30 p.m. ET (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).
Note: Inspection in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series garage is complete with no issues, confirming the No. 38 truck of Zane Smith as the winner.
The Nos. 22 and 31 cars of Joey Logano and Justin Haley, respectively, failed pre-qualifying inspection multiple times Saturday at Kansas Speedway.
Both teams will lose a crew member and pit selection following qualifying, but will retain their qualifying positions after each car passed on the third time through the inspection station. No. 22 Team Penske car chief Jerry Kelley and No. 31 Kaulig Racing car chief Jaron Antley were chosen by the teams for ejection from the 1.5-mile speedway.
UPDATE: The No. 17 of Chris Buescher and No. 22 of Logano will start from the rear for Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, Sirius XM) because of going to a backup car. The No. 11 of Denny Hamlin, No. 38 of Todd Gilliland and No. 47 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will start from the rear because of unapproved adjustments.
See where your favorite driver will pit in Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 in the NASCAR Cup Series at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Christopher Bell sped to his third Busch Light Pole of 2022 with a blistering lap in qualifying on Saturday at Kansas Speedway.
The No. 20 Toyota laid a lap of 179.575 mph around the 1.5-mile speedway to claim the No. 1 starting spot for Sunday’s race (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Tyler Reddick will start second with a lap of 178.855 mph ahead of Kyle Larson (178.772 mph), Austin Cindric (178.448 mph) and Kurt Busch (178.359 mph).
“We have everything we need to win the races, that is for sure,” Bell said. “Our cars are super-fast. I feel like I’ve been driving pretty well, especially the last couple of weeks specifically. We just have to maintain our track position.”
Rounding out the top 10 on the starting grid are Kyle Busch, Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman, Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Blaney.
Practice featured multiple on-track incidents, with the most frequent culprit being the left-rear tire. Chris Buescher, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Joey Logano each spun and crashed into the wall. Buescher and Logano will go to backup cars while Stenhouse’s primary car will undergo repairs.
“I lost the left rear going down the frontstretch,” said Buescher, whose team rolled out a backup car. “I guess, on corner entry, I started feeling a vibration, tried to slow down and didn’t get it knocked down in time.
“…It’s going to be a long night.”
Logano, who won last week’s race at Darlington Raceway, remained confident despite wrecking his primary car.
“As soon as I turned down off into the corner, I could feel the shaking, and I knew it was bad,” said Logano, who will start from the rear in a backup car on Sunday. “We’ll be all right. We’ll fight through it. I think we were pretty decent in lap times before that, I believe, on long hauls, at least.”
Other drivers who suffered flat tires were Denny Hamlin and Blaney. Hamlin incurred damage to his rear diffuser, forcing his No. 11 team to change the part and meaning he will start Sunday’s race from the rear of the field. Cody Ware also spun in the session.
Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service, contributed to this story.
Six days removed from the late-race contact he laid on William Byron to win at Darlington, Joey Logano’s views haven’t changed a bit.
Logano said Saturday his perspective remains the same after laying the bumper to Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet with two laps to go in a fight for the lead, multiple laps after Logano felt he was squeezed into the Turn 2 wall. The late shove bumped Byron into the wall and sent him to a 13th-place finish while Logano took home the victory.
“What happened last week happened, right? I got fenced,” Logano said ahead of Kansas practice and qualifying. “I stand by the same stuff I said last week. I got fenced, I retaliated and won the race. Like I said last week, that’s just kind of how it works. I won’t get pushed around. So in my book, we’re back to even. You reset and go again.”
Byron, unsurprisingly, sees it differently. A two-time winner this year, Byron said he watched the incidents multiple times and from different angles “to figure out what we can do to control our situation and then also what was done to us that was out of our control,” he said in an interview with NBC Sports reporter Dustin Long. “So there was definitely some things that definitely caught my interest.”
Nothing on the videos changed Byron’s mind.
“Nope. Same as what I felt in the race car,” Byron said. “He (Logano) made a choice in the middle of the corner, got down on my door, and what do you do? You either spin out or it gets close. So it got close.”
Byron was blunt when asked if he believes things are even between him and Logano: “No. Nope.”
Logano, the 2018 champion, made it clear that whether this feud with Byron continues, he’s ready to defend himself however he sees fit.
“Honestly, if he wants to keep going back and forth, I’ll keep swinging,” Logano said. “I don’t think that’s a good play for him in the long run. Like I said, I feel like we’re even. He was willing to take the lead that way. I was willing to take the lead back the same way.”
“He can keep going, but I can promise you I’ll keep going and I’ll go bigger every time.”
Richard Childress Racing No. 3 Chevrolet crew chief Justin Alexander will miss Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1) per NASCAR’s COVID protocols, the sanctioning body confirmed on Saturday.
No. 3 driver Austin Dillon will instead work with Jim Pohlman atop the box as he looks for his first NASCAR Cup Series win of 2022. Pohlman was listed as a mechanic on the No. 8 Chevrolet on the team roster for Bristol Motor Speedway.
Pohlman has 18 races of crew chief experience at the Cup level, with 17 coming alongside Juan Pablo Montoya in 2011 and one with Ross Chastain in 2020. He led RCR driver Sheldon Creed in three Xfinity Series races earlier this year, notching one top 10.
What will it take to win at Kansas Speedway on Sunday? So far this season we have seen it all: spectacular strategy, door-to-door dust-ups in the closing laps, and, most recently, a bump-and-run for the win. Through the first 12 races of the season, only Ross Chastain (Circuit of The Americas and Talladega Superspeedway) and William Byron (Atlanta Motor Speedway and Martinsville Speedway) have hung crooked numbers in the win column. With the playoffs creeping closer, a number of drivers who have come close but not yet sealed the deal will be itching to punch their tickets to the 2022 NASCAR Playoffs. Based on recent history, Kansas has emerged as a wild-card track, with eight different winners in the last nine races. But in the Cup Series’ 32-race history here, the track has surprisingly never produced a first-time Cup winner. Something has to give. Will we finally see the expected rise of the routine dominators? Or will the whirlwind start to the 2022 season continue? | Full Kansas Speedway analysis
Who’s hot? Who’s not?
The No. 9 team has been on a tear lately. Chase Elliott has finished top 10 in the last five races and has seven top 10s in his last eight. Not to mention the Dover Motor Speedway win and that he sits atop the regular-season points standings. In a season that has proven hard to be consistent, Elliott and crew have been just that. And they’re rolling into a track that they have thrived at, with three consecutive top-six finishes and stage points in 15 of the 20 stages at Kansas Speedway. Don’t expect him to cool off this weekend.
Youthful counterpart Ryan Blaney has been trending in the opposite direction. Blaney’s blistering pace to start the season, and three pole awards, had him lined up to win multiple races early, but the No. 12 team missed out on some key opportunities. In the last three races, Blaney has yet to find his way back into the top 10 at the checkered flag and has five finishes of 20th or worse in the last six Kansas races. Sunday will be a test of how far the No. 12 bunch has come — but don’t be too surprised if they find a gritty, statement win.
Driving under the radar
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has been surging lately, posting back-to-back top 10s at Dover Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway. Stenhouse is heading to Kansas where he led the fifth-most laps out of any driver in 2021 and he has qualified very well at times in his career. In a season full of unknowns, the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing team has seemingly found a nice stride in recent weeks. Aside from four DNFs sprinkled throughout various points this season, Stenhouse and company have really started to pick up the pace. Another top-10 result in the books this weekend and they could very well be in the mix with some of the fringe playoff contenders. He will have to do so from the rear of Sunday’s field after an incident in Saturday’s practice session saw his Chevrolet crash into the outside wall. | Cup Series standings
Saturday’s sessions
Like we have seen in previous weeks, practice proved to be a handful in the early going. Darlington Raceway winner Joey Logano spun and hit the wall, Chris Buescher also made heavy contact and Denny Hamlin damaged his rear diffuser. As the afternoon went on, drivers found better grip and made solid progress in the two-round qualifying session. The team who found the best handle: No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and wheelman Christopher Bell. Bell continued his hot qualifying streak with his third pole of the season, tying Ryan Blaney for most in the series. A pair of quick Chevrolets in Tyler Reddick and Kyle Larson trailed Bell before Austin Cindric, Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch rounded out the first three rows. If the early sessions showed us anything ahead of Sunday’s race, the most notable of them was the ability to drive in different grooves. Some ran the bottom, others drifted towards the top and a few found comfort right in the middle. A great sign for Sunday. | Full practice recap | Starting lineup
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Race-day staples ✅
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• Paint Scheme Preview: Super shiny schemes for the Sunflower State | Pick a favorite
• Power Rankings: Strong stats, extra motivation have Byron primed for Kansas | Updated driver rankings
• Fantasy Fastlane: Going Chevy heavy at Kansas Speedway | See why Chevrolet is the expert’s pick
• NASCAR betting: Odds, favorites for Sunday’s race | BetMGM betting odds
• Backseat Drivers: Does William Byron owe Joey Logano a bump-and-run? | Watch the debate
Catch the pack 💨
Read up on the top headlines from the week leading up to Sunday’s race.
• Team changes: Team Penske, Wood Brothers tweak pit-crew lineup ahead of Kansas | More details
• Best to move on?: Joey Logano speaks on the incident with William Byron at Darlington | Hear what he said
• Analysis: Harvesting new trends at Kansas with Next Gen momentum | Read more
• Babies are born: Kyle, Samantha Busch welcome new child | Pettys’ new arrival
• New podcast: Jeff Burton, Mark Martin team up with Mamba Smith | More details • Jack of all trades: Kyle Larson dominates at Charlotte dirt track | Full story
• All-Star Race: Fan Vote heats up as top 10 drivers emerge | Read more
• Appeal: ThorSport gets Darlington DQ overturned after appeal | Read more
• NASCAR Salutes: Honoring Jamie ‘Montana’ Price, hauler driver and Coast Guard veteran | Watch now
• eNASCAR: Garrett Lowe, Wood Brothers win Coca-Cola iRacing Series race at Kansas | Race recap
• Nominations open: 2022 Comcast Community Champion of the Year | Learn more
Get in on the action 💰
Think you know NASCAR? Put your mettle to the test with gaming, fantasy.
• BetMGM: Ross Chastain is bouncing back on betting boards | Read more
• The Action Network: Focus on the favorites this weekend at Kansas | Full analysis
• Featured Matchup: How to bet Erik Jones vs. Aric Almirola on Sunday | Learn more
• Play it LIVE: Full guide to 2022 NASCAR Fantasy Live game | Get the FAQ
• Going all the way: NASCAR betting: 2022 Cup Series championship odds | See them here
Sunflowers and success 🌻
Before NASCAR returns to the Sunflower State, look back at some track history and previous winners.
• Victory Lane: All-time winners at Kansas Speedway | See the list
• Do you remember?: Memorable moments at Kansas Speedway | Relive them here
• Last year: Kyle Busch wins last spring at Kansas on 36th birthday | Full race recap
• Scanner Sounds: Relive some of the sights and sounds from Kansas in 2021 | Listen now
Fast facts ⏩
Hard-hitting, race-relevant statistics, brought to you by the experts at Racing Insights.
• The driver who led the most laps won three of the last five Kansas races. • Kyle Larson won by a margin of 3.619 seconds at Kansas last fall, larger than the margin of the seven previous races combined (2.784 seconds). • There was a green flag stretch of 70 or more laps in seven of the last nine Kansas races. • The Stage Two winner finished outside the top-10 in eight of 12 races in 2022. • Kansas was repaved and reformatted between races in 2012, this will be the 20th race on the new surface.
Say what? 🎙
Notable quotes from the stars of the sport heading into Sunday’s race.
• “I’m excited about the weekend. We’ve been to pretty much every type of track that we’re going to see, so now we have some notes and data points that we can build off of. That helps us a ton with setups and finding a direction to work in. I feel like our team has been looking forward to this race since Las Vegas because of how strong our car was there, and this is the first true mile-and-a-half we’ve been to since then. As a company, we have been bringing great cars to the track lately and just haven’t been able to get the finish we deserved, but I’m confident that we can do that this weekend in Kansas.” — Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
• “It’s a big challenge. Probably a bigger challenge than what’s conveyed, just watching the races and what the fans would see at home. There’s a huge amount of unknowns and there’s a lot of pressure and focus for us to get the car right off the truck, because with just 15 minutes of practice there’s really few things you can do. And then I think for the drivers too, there’s a lot of pressure.” — Alan Gustafson, crew chief of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
• “I think it’s really beneficial to get all of these different track types not out of the way, but you get a notebook on every single type of race track. Now we’re going to places that you can relate to other places and when we first started with the car it was Daytona, California, Vegas, Phoenix, all different tracks and every time we went there it was kind of a guess, and now we’ve hit a lot of tracks that, quite frankly, I think race teams were worried about. They were really worried about Dover being really hard to kind of get set up right and maybe it was for some guys, I think us included. I crashed in Lap 2 of practice, so I guess some of those fears were right, but then we got through it and got better throughout the weekend, so the diversity of the schedule early has been, I think, good for the fans because they get to see a lot of different things and see how the Next Gen car performs, and it’s been really good for the teams because now we have a notebook of kind of every kind of racetrack that you could think of and we can go try to build off of that and show up off the truck closer than what we have been in the past.” — Harrison Burton, driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (MAY 13, 2022): B.J. McLeod Motorsports (BJMM) announced today that Nick Sanchez will pick up six NASCAR Xfinity Series races with the team for the remainder of 2022. Sanchez made his Xfinity Series debut with BJMM on March 12, 2022 at Phoenix Raceway in the United Rentals 200 earlier this season and finished 26th. The two have decided to expand their partnership.
BJMM welcomes Sanchez to race in the Alsco Uniforms 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, as well as the Xfinity Series races at Pocono Raceway and Michigan International Speedway, the Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Motor Speedway, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway and the Contender Boats 250 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Sanchez will race Friday in the ARCA Series Dutch Boy 150 at Kansas. Sanchez will also continue to race full-time in NASCAR’s ARCA Menards Series, driving the No. 2 Max Siegel Inc. Chevrolet for Rev Racing. In the ARCA Menards Series, Sanchez is currently third in points and only four points short of the leader.
“I’m really looking forward to expanding my 2022 Xfinity Series schedule with BJMM,” said full-time NASCAR ARCA Menards Series and part-time Xfinity Series driver, Nick Sanchez. “I’m excited to continue to work and grow as a driver with this organization.”
“Nick is a talented driver and determined student when it comes to racing,” said co-owner of BJMM, BJ McLeod. “He is passionate about the sport. We are excited to see his hard work transfer to the Xfinity Series and witness the results that follow.”
BJ McLeod Motorsports looks forward to welcoming Sanchez for his first added Xfinity Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. BJMM and Sanchez fans, tune in to watch Sanchez in the Alsco Uniforms 300 at 1 p.m. ET on May 28 on FS1.
