Nascar playoffs Round 2

     The first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs brought in a lot of action. From a run to the finish at Atlanta that saw Joey Logano win in a walk off to a wild one at the Glen that shook up the championship standings we’ve had a lot. Even though Bristol wasn’t the best we still saw that it mattered with a tight battle at the cut line. 

     Sunday marked the start of round 2 of the NASCAR playoffs and this time the circuit went to Kansas speedway and it was action packed. It was a beautiful race at a beautiful facility and I had the honor of being able to attend. Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs led the field to green.

Me standing at the Nascar experience section
At Kansas speedway

The race started out with one championship contender already behind the 8 ball as Chase Elliot had to start at the rear due to engine issues, and it didn’t take long for him to find trouble as off of turn 2 on lap one, there was a 4 wide battle for position which led to a multi car crash involving Josh Berry, A.J. Allmendinger,  and Harrison Burton. Chase was in the close vicinity of the wreck but escaped with minimal damage if any. This had the crowd in shock with some even pointing fun at it being lap one, but little did we know a shocking development was taking place. Even though Josh Berry isn’t a playoff contender I have to talk about this. He spun and made contact with another car but the only real issue was that the car was on flats and needed to be towed back to the pits. He was able to get a tow…..but it wasn’t to the pits. It was to the campground to where the car was then loaded onto a wrecker. NASCARs reasoning for not towing the 4 car back to the pits was because Berry made contact with another car and couldn’t continue, even though he had no damage. Josh and his crew chief Rodney Childers were both livid. Josh was in the car reporting to Rodney that the safety crews even took his window net down and told him to get out and that they were finished. “All we needed was tires with air in them. And how many times have we drug cars to the pit stall to put tires on them. Why today?” A angry Childers tweeted out after the race. This was definitely a interesting situation to say the least.

      We were able to go back green only for another caution. This time for Kyle Larson as he had a tire go down and made contact with the outside wall. He would end up falling off the lead lap because of this and the car was noticeably slower when the race went back green. So far for Larson, he hasn’t had the best of luck in race 1s of each round so far in the playoffs as he also slammed the wall hard in the opening race of of round 1 at Atlanta, however this was less extreme.

    The green flag waved again and Christopher Bell looked to be the car to beat….again. I say that jokingly as for the 3 NASCAR races that I attended this year, Bell was the dominant car, and this race seemed no different. Well that was until 8 to go in stage one as Bell then scraped the wall in turn 1 and William Byron was able to pass him and go on to win stage 1, with Joey Logano 2nd and Ryan Blaney in 3rd.

    Stage two started with William Byron leading only for another caution for Erik Jones as he spun off of turn 4. This led to pit stops where Denny Hamlin had issues with the right rear and he lost spots on pit road because of that. We go green again and Kyle Busch led us to the green just for Christopher Bell to pass him shortly after the restart but this led to a hard charging field to catch up to them. Another yellow happened and this led to Denny Hamlin pitting for a loose wheel which added to his rough day on pit road. We go green again and then have another caution, this time for Justin Haley and John Hunter Nemechek but both continued. This led to another restart and this time another caution but it involved a championship contender. Austin Cindric spun out on the back stretch and his right front wheel just hit the wall at an angle to damage it enough to hurt the performance of his car severely. He would lose several laps. Another restart and this time on the back stretch Alex Bowman was able to get to the inside of Bell but Bell this time in turn 3 scraped the wall again. Bowman was able to win stage 2 with Ty Gibbs in 2nd and Ryan Blaney in 3rd.

      Pit stops happened and the field was on split strategy and this led to drivers like Carson Hocevar, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Busch getting track position and they were all flying. Chastain and Busch were the class of the field for most of stage 3 once they got track position. While that was happening Ryan Blaney had to pit for a vibration and had to give up his position. As this was going on Kyle Busch and Ross Chastain were battling for every inch of the race track. Side by side, side drafting, door to door racing lap after lap and it seemed whoever was able to lead, the other guy would be able to catch up. While this was happening Martin Truex Jr was catching. Then with 32 to go the unthinkable happened. Off of turn 2 while trying to lap Chase Briscoe who is still in the playoffs, Kyle Busch got aero loose and lost it off of turn 2 taking him out of contention for the lead. We were able to get another restart before Carson Hocevar spun out after contact with Chase Briscoe. Another restart this time with 20 to go Ross Chastain was able to take the lead and not look back as even with a hard charging William Byron, it wasn’t enough as Ross Chastain was able to hang on and get his first win of the season in epic fashion. William Byron finished p2 with Martin Truex Jr in 3rd.  A few notable finishes are Denny Hamlin after pit issues all day finishing p8. Chase Elliot made it up to p9. Kyle Busch p19 after his spin. Kyle Larson was able to salvage a p26 finish.

     Kansas once again delivered and had absolutely beautiful weather. This facility is one of the best race tracks that I’ve ever been to and it’s not even close. This place has a superspeedway feel on a 1.5 mile layout and once again showed that in my opinion it’s the best track on the circuit right now. 

     With that being said, no driver was able to clinch a spot in the round of 8 and with Dega and the Roval both coming up, this championship is wide open. As always though, I’m here for it. Have a good day and stay safe everyone, peace.