KANSAS— Kyle Larson won the AdventHealth 400 to earn his 25th career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his second of the season, and his second at Kansas.
The scoring monitor had Chris Buescher winning the race as soon as it ended, but a review showed that Larson won by 0.001 of a second, the closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history.
“I didn’t know if I won or not,” Larson said. “It was just an incredible finish.”
In the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro for Hendrick Motorsports, Larson led 63 of the 267 laps on the 1.5-mile oval. It was his second win of the 2024 season, his second win at Kansas, and his 25th career win.
The start of the race was delayed three hours by rain, and darkness started to set in late in the second stage.
There were seven caution periods for a total of 43 laps.
Thirty-one of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
Kyle Larson remains the championship leader after Kansas with a 29-point advantage over second-place Martin Truex Jr.
Stage 1 Winner: Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: Chris Buescher of RFK Racing (Ford)
Stewart Haas Racing Finish:
- Noah Gragson (Started 3rd, Finished 9th / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps)
- Josh Berry (Started 17th, Finished 15th / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps)
- Chase Briscoe (Started 10th, Finished 21st / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps)
- Ryan Preece (Started 32nd, Finished 28th / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps)
Stewart Haas Racing Points:
- Chase Briscoe (14th with 290 points, 177 out of first)
- Noah Gragson (19th with 216 points, 251 out of first)
- Josh Berry (23rd with 196 points, 271 out of first)
- Ryan Preece (29th with 172 points, 295 out of first)
Noah Gragson earned his fifth top-10 of the season, and his first top-10 in four career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Kansas.
This was Gragson’s third straight top-10. He finished a career-best third on April 21 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and sixth last Sunday at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway.
“I thought we had a really good car all weekend. We started third and was fourth in practice and we came home ninth tonight. Overall, a good weekend,” said Noah Gragson, driver of the No. 10 Bass Pro Shops/Winchester Ford Mustang Dark Horse. “We were trying some strategy stuff there at the end, putting two tires on it with about 60 laps to go on that caution. It kind of hurt us in the short run, but we started making up ground in the long run. We thought it would be the opposite. I am super-thankful for everyone at Bass Pro Shops and Winchester, everyone at Stewart-Haas and Ford, and everyone who has been working really hard. That’s our third top-10 in a row. Third at Talladega, sixth at Dover, and ninth here at Kansas. Three, six, nine, damn, were doing fine. We still want a little more, but we’re doing well compared to what our goals were at the start of the year, and we just want to keep in building on it.”
This was Gragson’s sixth straight top-20.
Gragson’s ninth-place result bettered his previous best finish at Kansas, 18th, which he earned twice (in May 2022 and September 2022).
Gragson finished ninth in Stage 1, earning two bonus points, and 10th in Stage 2, earning one more bonus point.
After scoring his career-best starting spot last weekend at Dover when Gragson qualified fifth in his milestone 50th career NASCAR Cup Series start, the 25-year-old Las Vegas native bettered that mark at Kansas by qualifying third for the AdventHealth 400.
Josh Berry’s 15th-place result bettered his previous best finish at Kansas – 25th, earned last May.
This was Berry’s third straight finish of 16th or better. He finished 16th April 21 at Talladega and 14th last Sunday at Dover
“I think we definitely struggled in the early part of the race and really never got the feeling like I wanted, but we stayed after it all day and got a decent finish with our Overstock.com Ford Mustang,” said Josh Berry, driver of the No. 4 Overstock.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Berry was the highest-finishing rookie.
This was Briscoe’s 10th straight finish of 21st or better.
“We just weren’t very good for whatever reason,” said Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang Dark Horse. “Yesterday, during practice, I thought our car was pretty good. I didn’t feel like it was a race-winning car per se, but I felt like it was going to be in the mix for the top 10. We qualified inside the top 10, but when the race started, our car didn’t drive anything like it did in practice. We got into the wall in qualifying, and I don’t know if it did something that we didn’t catch or what, but we definitely just fought the balance all day long. You can’t really have days like that when you’re in our position points-wise, but we have a couple of good racetracks coming up, and hopefully, we can capitalize on them.”
Next Up:
The next NASCAR Cup Series schedule event is the Goodyear 400 on Sunday, May 12 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. The race begins at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
