Kansas Preview: 2019 Digital Ally 400

Kevin Harvick won last spring at Kansas.

Saturday night’s Digital Ally 400 at Kansas Speedway will be the fourth race on a 1.5-mile track this season and fifth race using the race package with engines producing only 550 horsepower.

The races at Atlanta, Las Vegas, Fontana, and Texas showed that Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have a substantial edge over all the teams getting two wins each.

However, it was Chevrolet that showed major gains in the last race using this package at Texas on March 31. In the first three races using this package, Kurt Busch was the only Chevrolet to have cracked the top-five doing so at Atlanta (3rd-place) and Las Vegas (5th).

The top-fives were littered with JGR Toyotas and Fords from Penske and Stewart-Haas Racing. But at Texas, Jimmie Johnson started from the pole, led 60 laps, and finished fifth. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron led 15 laps and finished sixth.

Maybe Chevrolet has turned the corner and the improvements made from the Fontana race to Texas have been even more enhanced the past six weeks since then. It certainly has been obviously apparent in the last two races using two different packages with Chevrolet getting its first win of 2019 at Talladega with Chase Elliott and his HMS teammate Alex Bowman being runner-up the last two weeks and Elliott finishing fifth at Dover Monday.

Another sign that the guys with bow-ties are showing major progress with any race package is Kyle Larson finish third at Dover. His Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Kurt Busch has been amazing in all packages, but Larson seems to find trouble weekly.

The good finish last week could create some nice momentum at Kansas where he led 101 laps in this race last season before finishing fourth as well as finishing third in the fall during the playoffs. It’s a good track for Larson if he can get some luck going his way.

Johnson is tied with Kevin Harvick for the most wins in track history which spans 26 Cup races dating back to 2001 when Chevrolet driver Jeff Gordon won the inaugural race and then did it again the next race there in 2002.

Kansas has been running two races a season there since 2011. Johnson has a track record 17 top-10 finishes in his 25 starts while averaging a 10.5 average finish.

READ MORE HERE.....GAMING TODAY LAS VEGAS