Another checkered flag, another race weekend in the books. Going into the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway, the talk of the garage was just how strong the Toyotas were. And the OEM carried that momentum into the race today with Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs, Bubba Wallace, and Chase Briscoe all in contention for the race win throughout the race. For some (like Tyler Reddick), it worked out. For others, Lady Luck just wasn’t on their side. Nevertheless, they have to be extremely happy with the collective speed they showed throughout the race.
Others, though, were on the struggle bus all weekend. These drivers and teams, for whatever reason, just missed the mark. Here are the biggest losers exiting this weekend’s race at Kansas.
You can’t say that Kyle Busch didn’t make headlines this weekend, but probably not in the way he wanted to. It all stemmed from comments Denny Hamlin made about Busch on his Actions Detrimental podcast. Those comments sparked a fiery response from the two-time champion, where he threatened to make Denny Hamlin’s life “hell”. But the reality is, Denny’s comments on Busch weren’t that far off. In fact, many would argue that they were fair game. The truth is that ever since the introduction of the NextGen Car (and, really, even before then…ever since COVID wiped out practice and qualifying in 2020), Kyle Busch hasn’t been himself. That’s not a problem that’s unique to his RCR tenure.
Today, same-old-same-old Busch. The No. 8 crew struggled from the moment they unloaded, and the team just completely missed the setup this weekend. With the long green flag runs, Busch went down a lap early and never recovered. He ran in last place, or next-to-last, for much of this race, ultimately finishing in the 35th position. So, a very bad, no-good weekend continues a very bad, no-good couple of seasons for driver Number 8. Rinse and repeat.
When it comes to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, Carson Kvapil has gotten one of the worst deals in the series. Sure, he’s driving for JRM for most of the races this season, but it’s extremely hard for him to build a consistent relationship with the team if he’s also sharing his primary ride with last year’s series Rookie of the Year, Connor Zilisch. To add insult to injury, Zilisch won in the ride last week at Bristol. Fortunately for Kvapil, that put him on the pole for Saturday’s race after qualifying was washed out. Unfortunately, we never got the chance to see what he could do as he crashed out of the race on Lap 2.
In one of the scariest crashes we’ve seen at Kansas, Carson Kvapil got loose, made contact with the outside wall, and barrel rolled down the back stretch after completing just one lap in the car that one last week with another driver. Ouch! That’s gotta hurt! Thankfully, he was okay and checked and released from the in-field care center. But it was a rough weekend for the driver of the No. 1 JRM Chevy.
There’s been a lot of talk about Spire and Trackhouse, both of which have been featured on this list several times this year. We’ll get to the latter in a minute (spoilers!), but first, I want to analyze Spire’s performance today as a whole and single out veteran Michael McDowell for a uniquely poor performance. When looking at these two teams, one receives its backing from Hendrick Motorsports while the other from ECR, and one camp is still in contention for winning races, while the other is seemingly out to lunch. In the case of Spire, they seem to have a similar qualifying speed as their HMS partners, and they can hang around the top 10 for usually the first stage of the race. However, when the race wears on, they tend to fade to running in the low teens and twenties by the end of the race.
Today was no exception…well, except for one driver. Both Carson Hocevar and Daniel Suarez were running in the top 10 early in this race. They of course faded, with Hocevar winding up 13th and Suarez finishing 19th. But their third driver, Michael McDowell, was just off today. He ran in the low twenties and thirties all race long and ultimately finished in the 34th position. With all the silly season talk in the garage right now, it might not be Daniel Suarez who has the hottest seat at Spire.
Last week, the team’s majority owner, Justin Marks, publicly admitted that Trackhouse was in a “rebuilding year”. While it may seem odd that a team can so quickly be in rebuilding mode after contending for a championship just a few years back and dominating the road courses with SVG a year ago. But it is clear that something is off with the team, so much so that it looks like Daniel Suarez with Spire is winning their breakup. Connor Zilisch is by far the worst of the three, but he’s still not that far off from his teammates. Today, Ross Chastain finished 26th, Zilisch finished 29th, and Shane van Gisbergen brought her home in the 36th position.
And this wasn’t an outlier performance for them. They’ve been running like this all season long, even with proven race winner and former Championship 4 driver Ross Chastain. The chatter online is that it’s their alliance with RCR that’s holding them back. That’s probably true, but there might even be bigger issues behind the closed doors of this once promising young team.
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