Opinion and Column by Roy J. Akers-www.skyviewsports.net
With NASCAR 11 races into the 2024 season and just two races away from the midway point of the chase for the playoffs, the points battle and races won are leaving things wide open.
Winners at Kansas
Kyle Larson– Larson was looking for his second win of the season and was in the top ten all day Larson leads CUP drivers in points, laps led and stage wins. His car was nearly supreme most of the race. He led five times for 63 laps and his final two lap duel with Buescher is an instant classic. Larson won by .0001 of a second. He won his second race of 2024 and now has 25 career victories.Larson explains the finish to the race. “It started off (turn) two, and I got a really good run and was able to get into his draft. He was trying to break it and you could tell he was probably going to try and take my line away. I just drove in as hard as I felt like I could. My car cut really well and I was able to get to his right side, and I don’t know if the camera caught it, but I was sideways and then got it kind of back under control. Then I had the run back to his right side off of four and was just too afraid to get too far out in front because a lot of times when you get someone inside close you get tight and into the wall. So I got off of four good and I thought, ‘man, I have got to kill his run quick’, so I just hung a left; doored him and just tried to stall his momentum. He had it slowly coming back to me at the line, so just thankful that it was enough and those guys behind us didn’t get a huge run and get to our outside.
Chris Buescher won stage two over Kyle Larson. Buescher won his first stage this season and has had a very solid performance. The stage win helped Buescher, who is the 14th ranked Cup driver in points. CB fell to 20th place halfway through stage three. Climbing back to take the lead and then dueling with Hamlin the last 50 laps of the race, Buescher took the lead with two laps to go and played a cat and mouse game with Larson. Larson came out of turn two and he traded paint with the FIVE and Larson was ruled the winner by .0001, the closest race finish in NASCAR history.THAT WAS THE CLOSEST FINISH IN NASCAR HISTORY, 0.001 SECONDS. WALK US THROUGH THAT LAST LAP: “We got a great push. Chase got us a good restart and we got into the corner. We were able to run the bottom pretty well and we had some good momentum down the back but Kyle (Larson) certainly had a run. I was trying to cover what I could but we just left too much space around the top side. Unfortunately, that ended up getting us, and it hurts. It was a good race. We were banging doors all the way to the checkers. I knew it was going to be close but certainly it hurts to be that close and miss out. The photo I have seen, I can’t make out anything from the photo finish at this point. Maybe we will see something a little bit clearer and get a better understanding.”
Denny Hamlin– Hamlin has already won 3 times this season and won his third stage of the 2024 season as he dueled Kyle Larson for most of stage one. Hamlin has won at Bristol, Richmond and Dover and has called his 2024 season “this is my year to win my first NASCAR title.” Hamlin finished fifth, .6 seconds behind Larson.
RFK Racing highlighted by Buescher above has a second machine in the mix. Brad Keselowski had several good moments in the race and they all paid off in the closing laps of the race. Keselowski was fourth with two laps to go but quickly fell back and finished 11th.
WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR YOU AS A RACE CAR DRIVER TO BE ABLE TO MIX IT UP LIKE YOU DID ALL DAY TODAY?
Kyle Larson-“Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was stressful for sure racing that hard in Stage One, but I was having so much fun with Ross (Chastain). It was super-aggressive, but clean. We never put each other in compromising positions and were able to swap positions there a couple of times. At the end of the second stage, it was getting kind of dicey and the whole third Stage was pretty crazy with all the cautions and strategy working out. (Chris) Beuscher was really fast and pressuring Denny (Hamlin) the whole time and we were fading.
Did Johnson lift or not?
Jimmie Johnson– has raced back to back weeks in Dover and now Kansas and this is not what the co-owner of Legacy Motorsports wanted in his very limited return to the Cup series. He was in a wreck on lap 176 and it involved five cars. The Fox crew said Johnson lifted his car for unknown reasons and Corey LaJoie ran into the back of him, causing the mayhem. Johnson said this after returning from the infield care center. “Just to make the turn. I was just slowing to make the turn. There’s traffic in front of me, so I’m trying to set up my line so I’m in clean air and not drive in the tire tracks of those in front of me. I was just setting up for the corner and got hit from behind.”
No Cautions and then Stage Three had plenty
Stage One and two had no cautions except the conclusion of the stage. Stage Three had plenty.
The Hamlin-McDowell wreck was second
The Johnson wreck was the first. Five cars were collected.
Then there were two consecutive spins including one involving Joey Logano. All four incidents brought out the yellow flag.
Factoid that may interest only me
Kansas had 33 of 38 drivers spend at least one lap in the top ten on Sunday. Not a record, but its in the conversation.
Ten Drivers led laps at the race.
Kansas Results
