After a thrilling, historic finish last spring between Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher, the best of the best of the NASCAR Cup Series roared back into town for the Advent Health 400 at Kansas Speedway. Just about a 20-minute drive from downtown Kansas City, this race has quickly become one of the hottest tickets on the circuit with some of the best racing around. One of the on-going storylines this season has been Kyle Busch’s winless streak. Overall, the RCR Chevys have shown more speed this year compared to last year. Was Busch able to put together a full race without incident in his number 8 Rebel Chevy?
Meanwhile, Brad Keselowski is having the worst start of his career. While teammates Ryan Preece and Chris Buescher have shown flashes of speed, Bad Brad has been relegated to running in the back of the pack. Was he able to turn it around today? And what about the Hendrick cars? They (specifically Larson and Byron) have been consistently some of the fastest cars this year. Did they continue their dominance? Let’s break all of that down. Here are the 3 biggest takeaways from today’s Advent Health 400 at Kansas Speedway.
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Kyle Larson had a picture-perfect weekend at Kansas. He won the pole on Saturday. During the race, he swept the stages. He led a total of 221 of the 267 laps. If you look up the word DOMINATION in the dictionary, you’re likely to find a picture of Kyle Larson. He spanked the field today with blistering fast speed (he also earned the extra point for posting the fastest lap). This was his third win of the season, tying him with Christopher Bell for the most of any driver this season. The only car that showed similar speed early on was Chase Elliott, who briefly captured the lead. However, a mistake on pit road relegated him to a 15th-place finish, handing this race to his teammate Kyle Larson.
A year ago, Kyle Larson was part of a historic finish that went down in the history books as being the closest margin of victory ever in the Cup Series. Today, he returned to Kansas City in dominating fashion. Starting from the pole, he led a combined 150 of the 165 laps of the first stage. The only time he wasn’t leading was during green flag pit stops, but he always cycled back to the front. He went on to win both stages, collecting 20 points and two playoff points to his credit. On Lap 164, he led his 10,000th lap in the NASCAR Cup Series. Furthermore, with these two stage wins, Larson now has 8 stage wins on the year. That’s more than double any other driver.
This was the 14th time that Larson swept the stages in a Cup Series event. With his performance today, he took over the points lead from teammate William Byron.
During the stage break, Larson led the field down pit road. On the way off, his teammate, Chase Elliott leapfrogged him, taking control of the race. However, when the field came down pit road again, Elliott had a very slow stop and Larson cycled back to the lead. It was just a slight hiccup in his dominant performance. He went on to win the race, earning a maximum of 60 points and 7 Playoff points. With this win, he sets his sights on Indy. Practice for the Indy 500 begins on Tuesday.
Early in this race, Denny Hamlin radioed in to his crew that he believed that he lost his clutch. He was running solidly in the top 10 at the time. Hamlin remained in the top 10 and even the top 5 through this issue, his biggest problem being on restarts and getting in and out of his pit stall.
When Hamlin’s crew chief asked him about a plan for pitting, he knew his day was pretty much done. The plan was to show the world just how fast his car was before the gears ultimately let go and he was forced to go behind the wall. He did just that on the next restart, working his way up to 4th before yet another caution came out.
During pit stops, the gears of the number 11 Progressive JGR Toyota let go as he was trying to exit his pit stop. In response, Hamlin’s crew pushed him behind the wall to the garage. He was done for the day.
Denny Hamlin has had an up-and-down start to the 2025 season. Currently, he has 2 wins and a pair of runner-up finishes. However, in recent weeks, he has struggled. At Talladega, he needed the race in 21st. Last week at Texas, he finished 38th. Today, he left Kansas City credited with a 36th-place finish. Despite the setbacks Hamlin and his team have had this year, they look forward to the All-Star race next week at North Wilkesboro and the Coke 600 the following week at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Just before halfway through the final stage, we got three big incidents in rapid succession on restarts. The first involved Ty Dillon, Cody Ware, and Daniel Suarez. As you can see in the clip below provided by FOX Sports, the incident happened as Dillon in the number 10 Kaulig Chevrolet got loose runing on the bottom. What followed was a chain reaction. Dillon washed up the track and got into Ware. As both of those drivers headed for the outside SAFER barrier, Suarez was collected when he had nowhere else to go.
Cody Ware was able to continue his race. However, Suarez and Dillon were both done for the day.
After the Dillon and Suarez incident, the filed lined back up for a restart. When the green flag dropped, the race was on. The second incident to happen concerned a fierce battle for 11th place. In Turn 2, Kyle Busch was running the bottom with Noah Gragson alongside. Josh Berry was running above them and Ross Chastain was wall riding it. Coming out of the turn, though, the track became too narrow. Gragson moved up, crowding Berry who made slight contact with Chastain. In response, Ross Chastain swerved left at Berry. Berry caught his car at the expense of Gragson, Gragson bounced off Busch, and Kyle Busch, getting the raw end of the deal, went spinning toward the inside wall. Check it out.
All the drivers involved in this incident were able to continue. Busch, who has had nothing but bad luck this year, had been a contender for a top 10 finish for most of the race. Ultimately, he had to settle for a finish outside the top 20.
The final wreck prior to the long stretch of green flag racing that ended this race involved Justin Haley. Haley in the NationGuard number 7 Chevy for Spire tangled with Erik Jones in the 43 from Legacy Motor Club. Also receiving damage in the incident was Austin Dillon in the number 3. Further back in the pack as a byproduct, Bubba Wallace checked up and spun, making a hard impact into the outside wall. Wallace was running in the bottom half of the top 10, but his race was done with this incident. Ultimately, the 23XI Toyota was credited with a 33rd-place finish. Check out this incident in the clip below.
Well, the Advent Health 400 at Kansas Speedway is officially in the books, race fans. On a scale of 1-100, how would you rate this race? What do you think of Larson’s dominating performance? Do you think anyone in the field had anything for the 5 car at any point today? Let us know what you think! And be sure to keep tuning back in here at DailyDownforce.com. We have an exciting couple of weeks of motorsports on the horizon and we’ll have all the latest out of the motorsports world right here.
