Cup

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer You may ask yourself how can a driver fly under the radar in a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series elimination race? Chase Elliott found out by never being a factor for the win at Kansas Speedway. Elliott finished inside the top-five after funning just inside the top-10 throughout the Hollywood Casino 400. He avoided trouble, staying ahead of a multi-car pile-up in his No. 24 Napa Auto Parts Chevrolet SS. Elliott narrowly missed being clipped by Erik Jones, whose No. 77 5-Hour Energy Toyota CamryRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Each week, NASCAR Editor David Morgan will break down who’s hot and who’s not after the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race weekend. Today, we break down the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. WINNERS Martin Truex, Jr. – Racing with heavy hearts after the loss of crew member Jim Watson to a heart attack on Saturday night, Truex and his Furniture Row Racing team had extra incentive to go out and score the win on Sunday. Though the team was able to capitalize andRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Martin Truex Jr. survived a restart penalty and an unscheduled pit stop to return to what has become a thoroughly familiar locale—Victory Lane—in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. In a dramatic race that brought Truex his seventh Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win of the season, calamity eliminated four drivers from the series Playoff. Jamie McMurray, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Matt Kenseth and Kyle Larson all saw their postseason hopes end with the final event in the Round of 12.Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Matt Kenseth had his work cut out for him heading into the elimination race at Kansas Speedway, needing to make up eight points to be able to advance onto the next round of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and he looked to be well on his way to accomplishing that before finding an early exit that put an end to his hopes of challenging for a second championship. Finishing the first two stages eighth and fourth, respectively, Kenseth put himself in position toRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer How many different obstacles in an elimination race can be thrown a drivers’ way? For Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Jimmie Johnson, a multitude of issues almost cost him a chance to fight for an unprecedented eighth series championship. Johnson narrowly escaped Kansas Speedway with his Championship hopes intact, a mere nine points ahead of Kyle Larson. Johnson ended the Hollywood Casino 400 in 11th, a far cry from where it looked like he would finish. Not once, but twice, Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’sRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Entering the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Kyle Larson was one of the “big three” that everyone thought was a lock to make it through the postseason with relative ease to fight for the championship in the season finale at Homestead, but as the knockout format has shown over the last few years, anything can happen and on Sunday at Kansas, he would be on the losing end of that. After four wins in the regular season, Larson was ranked the highest among theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor For Jimmie Johnson to be able to keep his hopes of an eighth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship alive, he’ll have to make it through Sunday’s elimination race at Kansas to do so. One may think that shouldn’t be too tough a task for the No. 48 team, but with only seven points separating him from the cut-off line, anything could happen by the time the checkered flag falls on the Hollywood Casino 400. The Round of 12 got off to a decent startRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor The Round of 12 all comes down to this. After a wild weekend on the high banks of Talladega Superspeedway that saw the majority of the field suffer some kind of damage on the 2.66 mile behemoth in Alabama, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads west to America’s Heartland to take on the fast 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway for Sunday’s running of the Hollywood Casino 400. First joining the circuit as a relatively tame 1.5 mile track with 15 degree banking in the turns, KansasRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor The 2001 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season started off with profound loss, but also ushered in an era of unprecedented growth for the series as they made their way to new markets and new tracks later in the year. One of those new tracks/markets was Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile intermediate oval just outside of Kansas City that would make its debut in September 2001. Jason Leffler and points leader Jeff Gordon would start on the front row, but it wouldn’t take long for thingsRead More