On Sunday at Kansas Speedway, Austin Dillon disproved the colloquial definition of insanity—trying the same thing and expecting different results.
Last week at Charlotte, Dillon took two tires on a late pit stop and wrecked when Martin Truex Jr.’s attempt to push him on a restart went awry.
But late in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas, there was Dillon again, taking two tires and taking the lead for a restart on lap 226. Continue reading →
He did it again.
Last in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings and faced with an uphill struggle to make the Round of 8, Kevin Harvick and his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team did what they do best—win with their backs to the wall.
Moments after a restart on lap 238 of 267, Harvick cleared Carl Edwards for the lead through turns one and two at Kansas Speedway and pulled away to win Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 by 1.183 seconds. Continue reading →
Kyle Busch’s domination of Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway was about the only predictable thing that happened in the first race of the Round of 8 in the inaugural NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase.
In winning his fourth XFINITY race at the 1.5-mile track, his ninth of the season and the 85th of his career—extending his own series record—Busch led 150 of 200 laps, passing Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Daniel Suarez after a restart with 13 circuits remaining.
“It was a hard-fought battle,” said Busch, who had surged to a lead of 7.961 seconds before the first caution slowed the field on lap 57. “Seemed like it was going to be easy for us. We had a super-fast car, and when we were out front, I could take it easy on those long runs and we could drive away.
“The car would turn so well. A lot of things were trying to work against us at the end of the race. We were able to persevere and do the right things and have lucky restarts and be in the right grooves and not get caught up in the mêlée that was happening.”
As well as Martin Truex Jr. has run at Kansas Speedway, it’s nothing short of remarkable that the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota has never won at the 1.5-mile track.
Truex has led laps in seven of his 16 starts at Kansas—in some cases, lots of laps. In the spring of 2012, while driving for Michael Waltrip Racing, Truex was out front for 173 circuits before finishing second to Denny Hamlin.
Most recently, Truex won the pole and led 172 laps at Kansas in May, only to finish 14th after a late-race pit road snafu. But with a berth in the Round of 8 of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup on the line in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (on NBC at 2:15 p.m. ET), Truex couldn’t think of a better time to get a breakthrough victory. Continue reading →
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