NASCAR at Kansas 2015: Winners, Losers from the Hollywood Casino 400

The best defense ended up being a great offense in the Hollywood Casino 400 for Joey Logano, the only winner of the Contender Round so far.

This race at Kansas Speedway wasn’t entirely entertaining. Then Matt Kenseth, who led 153 laps, got into lap traffic with a heated Logano surging up on his bumper. Kenseth blocked too many times for Logano’s liking and thus Logano spun the No. 20 out of what looked like a guaranteed bid in the Eliminator Round.

“He just lifted my tires off the ground and wrecked me,” Kenseth said on the NBC broadcast after the race.

Mistakes abound at Kansas from the pit boxes of Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr., while others overcame poor starts and broken cars for strong finishes. But the headline is how Logano stole this race from Kenseth. The question remains: at what cost?

Read on for this week’s winners and losers.

Loser: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Shaking Wheels

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. arrived at Kansas in need of a win. His effort at Charlotte a week before put him behind a wall of other drivers looking to advance to the Eliminator Round with the only way of vaulting over said wall being a win.

Then the wheels went shake, shake, shake.

“I was pretty sure we had an issue,” Earnhardt, who finished 21st, said during the NBC broadcast. “We had a lot of wheels shaking because the wheel is spinning inside the tire. Every set we had today except for one shook.”

He’s 31 points below the cut line, so it’s win or go home for the No. 88 car. He heads to Talladega where he’ll be the favorite—based on past performances at plate tracks—to win the race.

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I wouldn’t rather be going anywhere else than Talladega for the next race. If we need a win, that’s a good place for us, even over Daytona. I think we can go to Talladega and do the job. There’s a little more room there, so we can be aggressive and make the moves we need to make. I got the car, that car won the 125, was third in the 500, won Talladega and won Daytona, so it’s a good car.

I wouldn’t want to be going anywhere else if it’s a win-and-you’re-in deal.

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And that’s the case. He must win so that Dale Nation restores its sovereignty for the next round.

Winner: Kurt Busch's 'Wow' Moment

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With all the attention Kevin Harvick receives as the premier driver of Stewart-Haas Racing, it’s Kurt Busch who wormed his way into the top three in the Chase standings.

He felt all kinds of good until he realized he was only 13 points up on the cut line, even in third place.

“Really?” he said during the NBC broadcast.

Yes, yes, it’s only 13.

“Only plus-13?”

Yes, Mr. Busch.

“That’s unbelievable. I would hope we could’ve been 25. That’s how tight it is. It’s a competition where you can’t get a spot on anything and you can’t give up a spot. Plus-13 is not very exciting. Wow! You deflated my bubble in this round.”

Apologies, but you have done exceptionally well to reach this point.

“It was a good battle,” he said. “We’re a very good team, doing good things. Can we be great and finish great? That’s our next step.”

Busch isn’t the favorite to win the Sprint Cup by any stretch, but he’s in the discussion and he’s driving unnoticed, which is dangerous for other drivers and perfect for the snake coiled in the bushes.

Loser: Brad Keselowski's Pit Selection

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Brad Keselowski earned the pole for the Hollywood Casino 400, but he could only muster a ninth-place finish. Not bad, actually, but it could have been better had he not lost his pit selection.

He had received his fourth written warning for failing pre-qualifying inspections at Charlotte. It made winning the pole at Kansas sting a bit since he couldn’t choose the best spot on the pit road.

Kez led 28 laps early in the race and never reclaimed that early form. He needed to hit the wall to fix his car.

“I thought it was better!” Keselowski said during the NBC broadcast. “It was a long day. We weren’t very fast, but as a team we worked hard to get through it.”

As he heads to Talladega, it’s a familiar feeling. A year ago he needed to win the race to advance to the Eliminator Round, and that’s exactly what he did.

“Oh, yeah, there’s quite a few drivers who can win at Talladega and I think we’re one of them,” he said. “We don’t have to win, we just have to have a really good day.”

He’s sixth in the Chase standings, and playing the points game at Talladega is a dance worth sitting out. Get the win.

Winner: Kyle Busch Hanging in

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Kyle Busch was never in the discussion during the NBC broadcast. You know a driver is having a bad race when the announcers hardly mention his name.

Throughout much of the race, Kyle was a non-factor, but he managed to earn a top five, one spot ahead of his brother Kurt on the day.

“We kept fighting and persevered through everything thrown at us,” Kyle said during the NBC broadcast. “I kept trying to run up top like those guys were and I slipped in the oil in Turn 2.”

Kyle has lost the momentum he garnered back in the summer when he won four races, three in a row at one point. The No. 18 car doesn’t quite have the speed he once had, and now he sits in the Lucky Dog spot—one off the cut line—in the Chase standings.

He won once at Talladega back in 2008, but in the Chase last year, he finished 40th and peeled the Chase yellow paint off his car. He’ll need a steady effort and hope that one of the eight drivers ahead of him gets involved in some degree of negative consequence.

Loser: The Errant Gas Can

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No Bloomin’ Onions for fans of Harvick this Monday. He finished out of the exacta in this race thanks to a pitiful pit stop late in the race that saw the gas man fail to disconnect the can.

Harvick ripped the sucker out of his pit box, and NASCAR promptly gave him a stop-and-go penalty his next time by pit road. It cost him a lap, and he fell from second in the Chase standings to seventh faster than you can say, “Sunoco.”

“We’re lucky to come out of it as good as we did,” Harvick said on the NBC broadcast after the race.

He finished 16th, one lap down, with a broken gear shifter. In the end, he still finished fifth in the Chase standings needing a steady showing at Talladega (where he won once before) to keep his title defense alive.

“All in all it could’ve been worse. We kept digging,” he said.

But, as we saw with Jimmie Johnson at Dover, mechanical issues can surface anytime, any place. So long as Harvick can avoid that, he should get through to the next round.

Winner: Jeff Gordon and the Never-Give-Up Effort

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Jeff Gordon started sixth, fell all the way back to the 20s then managed to finish in 10th place, a whisker out of ninth.

He’s like the geese you feed at the park: He won’t go away.

“It’s the same way we got into the Chase and the same way we got into Round 2,” Gordon said during the NBC broadcast. “Just grinding it out. We qualified really good and had me optimistic, but, boy, we really struggled in practice. We struggled with the front grip. We couldn’t get it to turn.”

His ability to hang around the cut line is Ryan Newman-esque.

“We held on to the lead lap. I don’t know how, but we did,” Gordon said. “We were able to take two tires and a pretty good restart. All-in-all, a never-give-up effort.”

That puts the emphasis on a solid run at Talladega where, as you know, anything can happen. He’s seven points up on the cut line—seven valuable spots at a track that can wipe that out in one swing of the scythe.

“Every point means something, it doesn’t mean anything as far as our approach for Talladega next week,” he said. “I’m excited about our chances of winning, but not excited about our chances of being in a wreck. It’s usually high. We’re going to be aggressive and race hard and see where the points end up.”

Gordon hasn’t proved this year that his cars are capable of winning, so he’ll need to stay out of trouble to point into the Eliminator Round, something that’s increasingly hard to do at the superspeedways.

Loser: Matt Kenseth's Blocking

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Kenseth did what he was supposed to do. He saw a charging Logano behind him and promptly plugged his car in Logano’s way.

The No. 20 car knew the stakes: He needed the win to reach the Eliminator Round. Logano also knew the stakes. By winning, he could make it miserable for other drivers heading to Talladega.

Logano made an enemy where there was once a friend in Kenseth. Kenseth said during the NBC broadcast:

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I won’t talk to Joey. I don’t have anything to talk to him about. You make decisions every minute behind the wheel. To me strategically that doesn’t seem like a good decision for him. It’s the one he made. I’m one of the few guys who haven’t gotten into it with Joey. I’ve always raced him with a ton of respect. I’ve been one of his biggest fans. Certainly not anymore. I always was. It’s a shame. At least the car didn’t wreck and we’ll go on to Talladega and go from there.

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There’s a lot to unpack there. What’s worse for Logano? Kenseth making it to the next round still alive for the Sprint Cup, or an embittered Kenseth forced to the sideline due to Logano’s bump that sent him from first (and into the Eliminator Round) to 14th and now desperately clinging onto his championship hopes?

“Listen,” NASCAR analyst Jeff Burton said during the broadcast. “Matt Kenseth did everything that he had to do. He had to block Joey Logano.”

In so doing, he may have blocked himself right out of championship contention. As if the stakes at Talladega weren’t high enough, things got a whole lot tighter for the No. 20 garage.

Revenge could be coming at Martinsville in two weeks.

Winner: Joey Logano's Hard Racing

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What was Logano to do? Roll over and let Kenseth punch his ticket to the next round because he already claimed a spot?

What was Kenseth supposed to do? Let Logano steamroll past because he had superior momentum?

NBC’s Steve Letarte said during the broadcast:

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This is what racing is built on. These are two drivers that didn’t make excuses. Matt had to protect his position. Joey Logano is a competitor. He drives his own car for his own team. Neither of them are going to back down. That’s what I love. I love the respect for the sport. They’re the best drivers in the world.

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That neither of these guys gave an inch earned them the respect of the sport. To paraphrase and loosely echo what former football coach Herm Edwards made famous: You drive to win the race.

“This is good, hard racing,” Logano said on the NBC broadcast. “We raced each other really hard. I got fenced twice down the straightaways. He raced me hard and I raced him hard back. That’s just racing. That’s they way I race. If I get raced like that I race the same way. That’s how I’ve always been.”

No part of Logano was satisfied with having already advanced. He strapped in and made a race at Kansas where there wasn’t one.

Unfortunately for Logano, he won at a high cost. He made an enemy over the next five races. Kenseth is more dangerous to Logano now as a (possibly) eliminated driver than a contending driver.

Kenseth may wield a dangerous weapon at Logano’s back: spite.

The eyes in the sky better keep on an eye on Kenseth, otherwise Logano’s fate may not be his own hands, but in the hands of the enemy.