KANSAS CITY, KS – Ross Chastain won the Hollywood Casino 400 to score his fifth NASCAR Cup Series victory on Sunday. This was his first win of the season at Kansas. His margin of victory over second-place William Byron was .388 of a second.
Ross Chastain spoiled the party for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field at Kansas Speedway, holding off William Byron to win the Hollywood Casino 400, his fifth NASCAR Cup Series victory. Byron even looked at passing Chastain in the final corner but did not have enough momentum to make the move.
Byron’s second-place finish is his third of the season, his ninth top five, and his 15th top 10.
NASCAR Cup Series Playoff drivers struggled throughout the race. Kyle Larson and Austin Cindric both dealt with flat tires and heavy damage.
William Byron, Martin Truex, Jr., Ryan Blaney, and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five, with Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Zane Smith rounding out the top 10.
Chastain was the 16th different winner in the 30 NASCAR Cup Series races run this season.
There were ten caution periods for a total of 47 laps. Thirty-two of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
Race Winner: Ross Chastain of Trackhouse Racing (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stewart-Haas Racing Finish:
- Ryan Preece (Started 37th, Finished 16th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
- Noah Gragson (Started 24th, Finished 18th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
- Chase Briscoe (Started 9th, Finished 24th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
- Josh Berry (Started 29th, Finished 38th / Accident, completed 0 of 267 laps)
Playoff Standings (with two races to go before Round of 8):
- William Byron (3,074 points) +34 points
- Ryan Blaney (3,068 points) +28 points
- Christopher Bell (3,068 points) +28 points
- Kyle Larson (3,058 points) +18 points
- Denny Hamlin (3,051 points) +11 points
- Alex Bowman (3,048 points) +8 points
- Chase Elliott (3,044 points) +4 points
- Joey Logano (3,044 points) +4 points
- Tyler Reddick (3,040 points) -4 points
- Daniel Suárez (3,030 points) -14 points
- Chase Briscoe (3,019 points) -25 points
- Austin Cindric (3,015 points) -29 points
Briscoe finished 10th in Stage 1 to earn one bonus point.
“Man, it was a really, really bad day for us,” Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang Dark Horse. “That was not what we needed, certainly not what we wanted. We’re 25 out, so, of course, we can still do it. Just not what we wanted today, for sure. (On contact with Kyle Busch) Yeah, I don’t know if we ever touched. I haven’t seen it still. But these cars are so sensitive. I couldn’t really run on the wall, so I was trying to just make it where we had a car width and a couple of inches, and I saw him get loose as soon as he got to my right rear. It was unfortunate. Definitely, it didn’t feel like I was trying to do anything; I was trying literally to leave him in the top lane. So, yeah, these cars, just as soon as you get off to the right, especially here when you’re running the wall, they just get really, really loose. I hate it for him. He’s been so close all year long, and I’m a Kyle Busch fan. So I wanted to see him keep the streak alive. I hate that we were part of the conversation.”
Ryan Preece earned his 14th top-20 of the season and his second top-20 in 10 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Kansas.
“We had a good car,” said Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse. “The track just loosened up big time, so we lost a lot of track positions. Ultimately, it was frustrating because that’s where you need help on the other side, and we were just losing it on all ends. So, that last run, we finally got our car back to where it needed to be, but we were just too far back by that time.”
This was Preece’s fifth straight result of 18th or better. He finished 12th Sept. 1 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, 18th Sept. 8 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, ninth Sept. 15 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International and seventh Sept. 21 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
Noah Gragson earned his 18th top-20 of the season, and his fourth top-20 in five career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Kansas.
“It was an up-and-down day, but still super proud of everyone from where we started to where we got the balance,” Noah Gragson, driver of the No. 10 Bed Bath & Beyond Ford Mustang Dark Horse. “Drew (Blickensderfer, crew chief) made some good calls on top of the box, just needed a little more. I felt like we were good the second-to-last and third-to-last runs, we kept the car the same, and it just got a little bit tighter there on that last run. So, still just proud. I know it’s not a great finish, but proud of the weekend as a whole of how we worked together as a team, and we’re just grateful for the opportunity.”
“That was an experience like none other,” said Josh Berry, driver of the No. 4 Bed Bath & Beyond Ford Mustang Dark Horse. “Obviously, we got clipped and spun, and we had four flat tires. I assumed they were going to tow the car to the pits, which is what I was asking for, and then they dropped my window net and told me to get out. Rodney (Childers, crew chief) told me to stay in because all we needed was tires. They were telling me to get out. Then they towed me into the campground, so I was just out there chilling with the fans. At that point, they said they had to get a rollback, and they finally made me get out. Rodney was trying to talk to somebody and couldn’t get anybody on the phone. I don’t know what I’m missing. I’ve seen plenty of cars get towed to the pits and get tires put on, so I don’t know if I’m missing something or if there was something different than normal, but that was an experience, for sure. They said the tire was off the wheel, which is flat, so of course it’s off the wheel. They just refused to tow the car. They tried hooking it up on both ends, which I knew wouldn’t work. I don’t know why they didn’t just hook it up with the rear and tow it to the pit box, and let us get tires on it. That is disappointing. That is so crazy, the whole sequence of events, that I haven’t even processed it yet. That is the risk you take when you qualify where we did. I overdrove (turn) one in qualifying and got loose and those are the types of things that happen. It’s still on me, but I wish we could’ve gotten some tires on it and finished the race.”
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the YellaWood 500 on Sunday, Oct. 6 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The fifth race in the 10-race NASCAR Playoffs starts at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
