Cup Series Race at Kansas - All time Moment

I didn’t think I would be writing about Kansas. After an amazing finish in the Kentucky Derby and Lando Norris securing his first formula 1 win at the Miami GP, I certainly didn’t think we’d be here. With the Rain falling in Kansas City, and the race being delayed hours it seemed like Nascar would get swept to the back burner again in the racing world. But if the greatest wheelman of this generation didn’t do his thing on that Final Lap at Kansas, I doubt that the already fantastic race would get any fan fare. 

(And I would be remiss to ask, is Kansas and next gen the modern day Bristol?)

With Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain taking us to the green flag on Lap 1 of the 267 lap race followed by Kyle Larson and Noah Gragson behind, the 3 wide racing to open the start of the race behind the top 4 was already exhilarating. And with as close as Chastain and Bell were to the line on Lap one it had just been a little foretaste of what was coming at the End of the race.

And Chastain from that point took off like he had a mission until the middle of Stage 1 when Larson closed in to give us some hard, clean racing. (Unlike both of those guys, am I right?) They were blocking, side drafting, and making cross overs left and right against each other for a few laps and even got close to taking each other out, out of Turn 1 and 2. But that allowed Denny Hamlin to make a late push in stage 1 with all the racing those two were doing.

These next gen cars on miles and a halves have really brought a breath of fresh air with the failings the new cars have had on short tracks. I’d love for them to keep the setups they have on these 1.5 milers, but can we please see some more horsepower on everything less than a mile? 

But back to the racing, Denny managed his tires into a stage 1 win followed by Chastain who tried to get it to stick off of 3 and 4 to steal that playoff point. But Denny had some terrible luck on pit road getting blocked in by my least favorite driver in Nascar, Austin Hill. Sorry folks, but Austin Hill is a super speedway merchant in the xfinity series with a ECR engine. His talent will be much like Wrecky Spinhouse (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) with a dominant Xfinity series team, in an overly dominant car, but it just won’t ever translate over to the cup side.

And stage 2 got off to an exciting start didn’t it. With the same front row as the beginning of the race, Bell and Chastain raced hard for the first lap again. But this time instead of a ridiculously close margin to the line, they both had to lift allowing Larson to squeeze by for the lead on the second lap of the stage, and what I thought would be the most exciting moment of the day, 5 wide racing from the wall to the apron at Kansas. With Gibbs, Truex, Bueshcer, Bell, and Chastain having a crazy video game moment. With somehow managing not to pinching Buescher and causing a crazy pileup behind them. 

And with the green flag pit stops occurring half way through stage 2, Leader Kyle Larson could not keep the lead with his usually great crew not getting the front left tire on, causing him to cycle back into the field, but just like anytime Kyle Larson comes across adversity, he rises against it and Ended up finishing 2nd in the stage behind Chris Buescher. (I mean come on the foreshadowing is getting out of hand now ;) )

But during the stage break, Buescher had a terrible break with guys over the wall too soon, and Denny almost having a wreck on pit road with Ryan Preece set them back as well. 

And the final stage got off with a bang, literally. With Corey Lajoie slamming into the rear of Jimmie Johnson, causing both of them to back into the turn 1 wall and Jimmie Jams toyota catching on fire. 

And as they say Cautions breeds cautions. 

Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindirc slammed the wall off of 2 causing Cindric to cut across the race track and collect Michael Mcdowell in the process. I think Cindric knew it was the perfect time to gain some track position, but the risk outweighed the reward that time. And Bubba followed behind hitting the wall as well. But, I thought bubba would’ve been done for the day, but he actually finished in the same position as when he wrecked on lap 184.

And this wreck was followed by a Logono spin. And That caution led to some interesting pit strategy that was sadly marred by a Kyle Busch spin with 7 to go. Because the racing and strategy itself was getting me amped up for a good finish already. 

With Larson and Buescher fading, and Denny extending his lead, and Brad K and Truex pitting the latest and having more tires and fuel. Truex began to reel in Denny until the KFB spin. 

And at that point, we all knew Pit road was going to be important. Denny took 2 tires, others took 4. But It looked like Denny was going to pull off back to back wins. 

But the picture was set coming out of pitroad for Nascar Overtime 

Hamlin & Buescher
Larson & Elliot
Blaney & Gragson
Bowman  & Nemechek 

It looked like it was going to be one of those 4 wide laps, But Larson pulled out of line and took Denny to the middle lane where he was left out to dry allowing Bueshcer and Larson to take off followed by the Nascar Golden boy Chase Elliot and Hamlin two wide. Buescher blocks Larsons run into Turn 3 Checking them both up allowing the now 3 wide pack of Elliot, Truex, and Hamlin to close in Slightly, but only Truex seemed to hold on off of 3. But coming to the start finish line by a car length, Chris Buescher took the white flag with Larson coming behind. 

Now with a great run into 1 & 2 Elliot and Hamlin make it 3 wide behind the two leaders allowing them to exit 1 & 2 with great runs. Larson held it near the wall through 1 & 2 and it created an amazing force of momentum to take him to a tow run down the backstretch. Looking like an 1ndy 500 finish Buescher jets to the bottom of the back stretch followed by Larson where they both take the high entrance into 3 & 4 with Larson managing to squeeze between thew 17 car and the wall, with Buescher trying to nudge Larson into the wall, he gets hit by Larson down to the Apron where the 5 car once again beats into his right side of his Castrol Edge Ford Mustang. And coming to the Line………..

Chris Buescher wins! 

His team is celebrating on pitroad, the Fords and RFK racing have finally pulled it off.

But just like out of a Hollywood movie, Nascar comes over the radio and announces the 5 car as the winner. How could this be? The transponder says the 17 won, the eye test looks like the 17 won. But by the closest margin in Nascar history .001 Larson somehow edged past Buescher to steal a win away from RFK and Ford.

Hollywood. With as close as close as the Kentucky derby was, if Mystik Dan wins the triple crown, there will certainly be a secretariat-esque movie made. But it wasn’t even the racing highlight of the weekend. A Middle season, Nascar race, in the middle of the United States outshined the Elite F1 race in Miami, and the Kentucky Derby. 
I guess Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce wish they stayed in their backyard for the weekend.

But we have to talk about a few things. This Kansas racetrack is incredible, and maybe we should race every race here, every week. Nascar is going to have some incredible footage for their Netflix show with all these wild things happening week in and week out. 
And Race tracks should probably make the start finish line straight. Because we had a .003 margin of victory at Atlanta, .002 at Texas in the Xfinity Series with Sam Mayer beating out Ryan Sieg, and now .001 here at Kansas. 

Could you imagine the scenes if we did have a dead heat and the line isn’t completely straight but the computer camera says the car who hadn’t reached the line first in technicality won. I am not saying that would ever happen, but the uproar would possibly be louder than it already was this weekend. Especially if it was a Hendrick Car who was the loser.


Anyway, this season is heating up and man it looks like we’re about to have a once in a generation season at our hands. let’s just hope the “Nascar Playoffs” don’t ruin it.

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