KANSAS CITY, KS. – Kyle Larson made the save of the year last Sunday at Darlington, and Joey Logano made a steady run to the top of the NASCAR Cup Series standings.
Now the 16 championship hopefuls head to Kansas Speedway for the first trip to a 1.5-mile intermediate speedway since May. They’ll be battling to improve their positions in the standings in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by Barstool Sportsbook (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Believing he had an engine issue at Darlington, Larson pitted for repairs on Lap 79 of 367. He lost three laps and dropped to 35th in the running order as his crew worked under the hood before sending him back onto the track.
The engine problem ameliorated, and Larson regained the lead lap as the beneficiary under a Lap 231 caution, after recovering two of the lost circuits with wave-arounds. Larson finished 12th and, instead of dropping below the Playoffs’ Round of 12 cutline, he enters the Kansas race seventh in the standings, 17 points to the good.
“I feel like every week has been pretty wild and unpredictable,” said the reigning Cup Series champion and defending winner of the Kansas race. “Darlington was maybe a little bit (wilder) than normal compared to other races this year, but I feel like every race this year, the majority of the field has had some sort of issue go on throughout the race.
“As much as I want to say Kansas will be different, I just don’t know. It could be even crazier. But I hope that we can have a smooth week, get some points, and try and put ourselves into a better position as we go to Bristol (for the Sept. 17 cutoff race).”
Logano grabbed the lead in the Playoff standings with a strong fourth place run at Darlington, but it didn’t come without a fight. After starting from the pole, the 2018 series champion fell out of the top 10 after a slow pit stop on Lap 75 and spent the rest of the race working his way back into the top five.
“It’s a solid day but a missed opportunity is probably where I would put it,” said Logano, who leads second-place William Byron by six points. “With so many others having trouble, every time you come to the Southern 500, especially in the Playoffs, you’ve just got to survive, and you get a solid finish.
“That’s what we were able to do is finish fourth after so many teams had issues. We had plenty of our own issues, too. We gave up track position a couple times and then we got caught with that caution and lost track position fairly late in the race (Lap 275), and then we just battled hard.”
Logano has to like his chances at Kansas, where he has claimed three victories (all in Playoff races) and two poles. But the Playoff field remains tightly bunched, with Logano leading 16th-place Kevin Harvick by only 49 points.
Harvick, who also has three Kansas wins on his resume, trails 12th-place Daniel Suarez by a mere 13 points. In other words, Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 could prove to be the salvation—or the undoing—of any driver in the Playoffs.
The series hasn’t raced on an intermediate track since the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte in late May. Consequently, teams have been trying to gauge advances with the Next Gen car through simulations.
Kurt Busch won the May race at Kansas, with Larson running second, but Busch has been sidelined with concussion issues and gave up his spot in the Playoffs while he recovers.
Source: Reid Spencer / NASCAR Wire Service
