Kansas Major Opportunity for Larson, Hamlin Amid Chaotic Round of 12
After an absolute thumping by Kyle Larson a week ago in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, where the Hendrick Motorsports driver led an astonishing 462 laps on his path to his series-leading fifth win of the season, expect him to be in the mix again this weekend at Kansas Speedway. Expect Larson's archrival Denny Hamlin to be in the mix as well.
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Since the Next Gen car debuted in 2022, Larson and Hamlin have been among the best in the NASCAR Cup Series garage in the five races contested at the 1.5-mile intermediate oval in Kansas.
Both drivers have scored a win at the track in that time, and Hamlin has yet to record a finish outside of the top five at Kansas Speedway in the Next Gen car era. Hamlin's average finish over his last five races at Kansas is an unfathomable 2.8.
While Hamlin is nearly flawless at Kansas over the last three seasons, Larson's record at Kansas is also nearly spotless. The driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet has just one finish outside of the top 10 at Kansas in his last five starts, an eighth-place result in the fall of 2022. Larson's average finish is 3.4, which if not for Hamlin's incredible record at the track would seemingly make Larson a virtual lock heading into the weekend.
Kansas Speedway serving as the opening race of the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs is a welcomed sight for both Championship hopefuls.
"Certainly, yeah. It's all offense from this point forward," Hamlin said after advancing to the Round of 12 at Bristol. "So yeah, we're going to Kansas, a track we've been really good at, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the run."
Prior to Larson's win and Hamlin's fourth-place finish at Bristol last weekend, both drivers had suffered a miserable start to the Playoffs in the Round of 16. Fortunately, their Playoff seeding and a bountiful amount of Playoff Points bailed them out. Both drivers likely won't have that luxury in the Round of 12 or the Round of 8, where drivers and teams typically have to be nearly perfect to advance forward.
With Talladega Superspeedway up after Kansas, and the Charlotte Roval on the slate to close out the Round of 12, Kansas is ultra important for both drivers. Larson is just happy that Kansas is first in the Round of 12, as it'll give him a better idea of what he'll need to do at Talladega and the Roval to advance.
"I mean, I like that Kansas is first rather than being the last in the round," Larson said of the structure of the Round of 12 schedule. "Kind of like how this round -- ultra confident coming to Bristol, but it's the final race of the round, where the next one, it's like, okay, if I can go to Kansas and do a really good job and get good stage points, get a good finish, you have a little bit more comfort going to Talladega rather than Atlanta. You finish dead last and it's like, you're kind of stressed the whole time."
While Hamlin has been regarded as one of the best superspeedway racers of his era, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has had a rough go at things in drafting races in the Next Gen car.
Despite being a five-time race winner at Daytona and Talladega, Hamlin has not won a single race at a drafting track in the Next Gen era, and in the 17 drafting track races in the Next Gen car, Hamlin has just three top 10 finishes. Hamlin has always had a knack for knowing when to push forward in superspeedway races, but it seems the style of superspeedway racing in the Next Gen car has impacted his ability to compete for wins at those types of tracks.
In the most recent drafting race at Atlanta, Hamlin and his crew chief Chris Gabehart tried something new. They went with the analytics, which said there would likely be a crash in the opening couple of Stages, so, Hamlin held back all race long waiting for the big crash to wipe out his competitors. It didn't happen, that is, until Hamlin was pushing his way forward on the final lap of the race. Hamlin was involved in the crash, and finished a disappointing 24th.
With how bad superspeedways have been for Hamlin lately, they're even worse for Larson, who has just one top-10 finish, a fourth-place effort at Talladega, in the last 17 races at drafting tracks. While hamlin was disappointed with a 24th-place finish at Atlanta, that finish is actually better than Larson's average finish at superspeedways (24.47) in the Next Gen era.
And while Larson is well-versed at road course racing, anything can happen at the Charlotte Roval. Larson's 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship run nearly came to a halt at the Roval, and he's had several other sketchy Playoff situations at the makeshift road course in the infield of the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Larson actually considers the Roval more stressful than Talladega.
"...The Roval to me has been -- I've had a lot of moments of stress there throughout my playoff career. Hopefully we're in a better position once we get there and can have less stress because it's pretty stressful," Larson explained in his Bristol post-race press conference. "It's more stressful than Talladega for sure."
With the Roval debuting a slightly tweaked track layout, that makes that race even more of a wildcard than it has been in the past.
With so much uncertainty and chaos ahead in the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, This weekend's race at Kansas Speedway will likely be pivotal to the championship hopes of two of the favorites in the Playoff field -- Larson and Hamlin.
The NASCAR Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway is set for Sunday, September 29 with television coverage being provided by USA Network (streamable on the NBC Sports App) beginning at 3 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.
TOBY CHRISTIE
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.