Tyler Reddick wins at Kansas, advances to Round of 12

 

STEWART-HAAS RACING Hollywood Casino 400

Date:  Sept. 10, 2023 Event:  Hollywood Casino 400 (Round 28 of 36) Series:  NASCAR Cup Series Location:  Kansas Speedway in Kansas City (1.5-mile oval) Format:  267 laps, broken into three stages (80 laps/85 laps/102 laps) Note:  Race extended one lap past its scheduled 267-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.   Race Winner:  Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota) Stage 1 Winner:  Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet) Stage 2 Winner:  Brad Keselowski of RFK Racing (Ford)   SHR Race Finish:             ●  Kevin Harvick (Started 20th, Finished 11th / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps) ●  Aric Almirola (Started 25th, Finished 17th / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps) ●  Ryan Preece (Started 28th, Finished 18th / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps) ●  Chase Briscoe (Started 26th, Finished 19th / Running, completed 268 of 268 laps)     SHR Points: ●  Kevin Harvick (12th with 2,063 points, seven points ahead of top-12 cutoff) ●  Aric Almirola (23rd with 491 points) ●  Ryan Preece (27th with 457 points) ●  Chase Briscoe (30th with 373 points)   Playoff Standings (with one race to go before Round of 12): 1.    Kyle Larson (2,117 points) 1 win 2.    Tyler Reddick (2,111 points) 1 win 3.    Denny Hamlin (2,105 points) +49 points 4.    William Byron (2,097 points) +41 points 5.    Brad Keselowski (2,089 points) +33 points 6.    Ryan Blaney (2,081 points) +25 points 7.    Kyle Busch (2,080 points) +24 points 8.    Ross Chastain (2,074 points) +18 points 9.    Chris Buescher (2,069 points) +13 points 10.  Christopher Bell (2,069 points) +13 points 11.  Joey Logano (2,068 points) +12 points 12.  Kevin Harvick (2,063 points) +7 points 13.  Martin Truex Jr. (2,056 points) -7 points 14.  Bubba Wallace (2,044 points) -19 points 15.  Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (2,041 points) -22 points 16.  Michael McDowell (2,023 points) -40 points   SHR Notes:         ●  Harvick is the only driver to have competed in every NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas, a total of 36. ●  Harvick finished 10th in Stage 1 to earn one bonus point and fourth in Stage 2 to earn seven more bonus points. ●  This was Almirola’s third straight finish of 17th or better. He finished third Aug. 26 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and 14th last Sunday at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. ●  Almirola led once for three laps to increase his laps-led total at Kansas to 75. ●  This was Briscoe’s second straight top-20. He finished 15th at Darlington.   Race Notes:        ●  Tyler Reddick won the Hollywood Casino 400 to score his fifth career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his second of the season and his first at Kansas. His margin over second-place Denny Hamlin was .327 of a second. ●  There were nine caution periods for a total of 45 laps. ●  Twenty-four of the 36 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.   Sound Bites:   “The car was a handful today. Battled a really tight Ford Mustang all day and just couldn’t turn the corners. For a while I could race really well on a restart for about three laps and then it just built extremely tight. The pit crew got us some track position again this weekend, but we couldn’t keep up with it on the long runs. We knew what we had coming in today and improved a lot on it. Excited to go to Bristol. We brought a really fast car there last year.” – Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield/Whataburger Ford Mustang   “For us, this place has been a huge struggle, but I felt like we made a lot of gains today. We got our car to where it could at least run 15th instead of struggling to run 25th. Thought we passed a lot of cars. Got up to 13th or so, and then our engine shut off. That put us a lap down and we just had to keep fighting all day long after that. But we made our car way better, which was encouraging. We still have a long way to go whenever it comes to Kansas. Hopefully, we can just continue to build on that.” – Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang   Next Up: The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Bass Pro Shops Night Race on Saturday, Sept. 16 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. The third race in the 10-race NASCAR Playoffs starts at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by USA and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.