NASCAR at Kansas 2014: Winners and Losers from the Hollywood Casino 400
The Hollywood Casino 400 is in the books, and the Contender Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup is off to a dramatic start.
There are currently 12 drivers remaining in the Chase, and in two weeks, after Talladega, the field will be narrowed to eight. After Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway, the only sure thing is that Joey Logano will be moving on. The 24-year-old avoided trouble and cruised to his fifth victory of the year.
Elsewhere, a fast track and unpredictable tires caused trouble for some of the biggest names in the sport and made next week's Saturday night race at Charlotte must-see TV.
Here are the winners and losers from an exciting afternoon in Kansas City.
Loser: Hendrick Motorsports
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It was a day to forget for the Hendrick Motorsports team. After this race, three of the organization's four drivers are on the outside of the top eight looking in, and Jeff Gordon is its highest-ranked driver at eighth in the points standings.
Jimmie Johnson got the team off to a disastrous start, crashing into the wall after a wreck with Greg Biffle on Lap 85. He ended up finishing 40th and is currently in last place in the Chase.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was leading the race when he blew a tire and hit the wall, sending him to the garage. He was able to come back on the track but finished in 39th place and is 11th in the standings.
Kasey Kahne hit the wall as well, finishing 22nd in the race and sitting ninth in the standings, while Gordon finished 14th. That's zero top-10 finishes for this all-star group and an inordinate amount of pressure on the team heading into the next two weeks of the Chase.
Winner: Joey Logano
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Joey Logano is flying high right now after his fifth win of the season—his second in three races—launched him into the next round of the Chase, no matter what happens over the next two weeks in Charlotte and Talladega.
He certainly looks like the driver to beat and was ecstatic as he talked on ESPN after the race. "This 22 team is amazing, it's so much fun to work with," he said. "Talladega was the place that concerned me, so getting this win was key.
"Knowing we're going onto the next round is nice, but we have to keep the momentum going."
Losers: Favorites
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In this new NASCAR playoff system, points reset after each elimination, meaning all 12 drivers still in the Chase were on equal footing at Kansas. After a rough day for the brightest stars in the sport, there's now a real danger that some of NASCAR's biggest names won't make it past Talladega.
We've already discussed all of the problems that the Hendrick Motorsports team had, but Team Penske's Brad Keselowski joins Johnson, Earnhardt Jr. and Kahne in the bottom four after his bad day on the Kansas Speedway.
Keselowski, who won three weeks ago in the MyAFibStory.com 400 and finished second last week, blew a tire and ended up finishing 36th. He's now 10th in the Chase standings, a big shock after his five-win season set him up as one of the biggest postseason favorites.
Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth are all in trouble too, sitting on the outside of the top five looking in. The stakes for next week's race at Charlotte just skyrocketed.
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Winner: Kansas City
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The dramatic race at Kansas capped off an electric week of sports in Kansas City.
The week started with the Kansas City Chiefs beating the New England Patriots on Monday Night Football, then saw the Kansas City Royals win the MLB postseason play-in game in dramatic fashion. On Sunday evening, the Royals will host an MLB playoff game, and they'll have quite a few fans on the track too.
Bob Pockrass of Sporting News wrote about the close connection between NASCAR and the Royals:
"Kansas does have three 'home' drivers with Missouri natives Carl Edwards and Jamie McMurray and Kansas native Clint Bowyer.
Edwards went to a Royals game earlier this year, talked with manager—and friend of NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt—Ned Yost, and threw out the first pitch.
'I spent a bunch of time with Ned Yost and I became a fan,' Edwards said. 'It is really cool to see what the Royals have been able to do. … We actually had an invite to Ned Yost to come out here to the race track but we are glad he can’t because of all their success.'
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Via satellite, Ned Yost kicked off the race by telling the drivers to start their engines. It was certainly a week to remember for Kansas sports fans.
Loser: Kevin Harvick
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This was yet another race in which Harvick began well but didn't come away with the victory. He started out in first after winning his eighth pole of the season but ended up finishing a disappointing 12th.
He led 61 laps, but ultimately, another pit miscue doomed him. "I thought I had a flat tire and pitted just because," he said on ESPN after the race.
Earlier this week, Harvick discussed this trend of losing after qualifying on the pole with Nate Ryan of USA Today:
"It's just been a phenomenal year. There's been some bad luck, but these guys continue to focus on what they need to focus. That bad luck can't stay with us forever. You keep leading laps and qualifying well, you're going to win races. I truly feel we can win at any style racetrack at any point, it's just a matter of everything going right.
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Harvick now sits sixth in the Chase and needs everything to go right to hang on to a spot in the top eight and a place in the next round.
Winner: Kyle Larson
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Rookie Kyle Larson isn't in the Chase field, but he's certainly making quite an impression this postseason.
Larson finished in second place Sunday at the Hollywood Casino 400, adding to his sixth last week at Dover, second at the Sylvania 300 and third at the MyAFibStory.com 400. If he were a Chase driver, he'd be in the hunt for the title for sure.
The 22-year-old still doesn't have a win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, but it's certainly going to happen sooner rather than later.
"The wins will be coming, we just have to be patient," he said on ESPN after the race.
Loser: The Goodyear Tires
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This race was not a good advertisement for Goodyear, as tires were blowing left and right, ruining the afternoon for stars such as Junior and Keselowski.
Earnhardt described his tire problems after the race, via NASCAR.com:
"The whole surface of the tire unwound like a string. It just came off the car and it popped off in the corner. I felt it coming apart through the corner, and the surface of the tire is gone. The whole cap came off. Must have been a recap.
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On ESPN's SportsCenter, Ricky Craven was very hard on Goodyear.
"Goodyear needs to make a better product," he said. "We don't need the playoffs decided on busted tires. ... It's got to be corrected. A blown tire is bad luck. Blown tires is a trend."
Winner: Kyle Busch
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Kyle Busch has had success on a lot of tracks in his career, but Kansas Speedway had not been one of them. That is, until this weekend.
Busch won the Nationwide race on the track Saturday, and he carried that momentum over to the Sprint Cup race Sunday, where he finished in third place, his first top-five finish in Kansas. He even overcame a pit-road speeding penalty on the day.
He's now second in the Chase standings, sitting nicely near the top before the series heads to Charlotte and Talladega. For Busch, third place has never felt so sweet.
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