Christopher Bell streaks to third straight Kansas Speedway pole
Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Kansas City, Kansas — For once, Chistopher Bell thinks he has a car that’s race-worthy as well as lightning fast in qualifying at Kansas Speedway.
Navigating the 1.5-mile track in 30.111 seconds (179.336 mph) in the final round of Saturday’s time trials, Bell edged Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs (179.099 mph) by 0.040 seconds for the top starting spot in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN BET (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Bell will start the first race of the Round of 12 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs from a familiar spot. He earned the Busch Light Pole Award at the track for the third consecutive race and fourth time overall.
“I’ll tell you what, it’s the people that work on this race car that made the statement,” said Bell, who claimed his second pole position this season and the 12th of his career. “We showed up with probably the best Kansas car we’ve ever had.
“It’s always been a great track for us to qualify, and it seems like whenever we go race, we’re always in the third-to-seventh range. Today it was different. It felt really, really good in practice. I felt really comfortable driving the car.”
Bell has never converted a pole into a victory at Kansas Speedway, a situation he hopes to correct on Sunday as the second round of the Playoffs begins.
“The tough thing about Kansas is maintaining the balance,” Bell said. “This place, with these (Gen 7) cars, it swings really, really bad. You’ll start off really comfortable, and depending on how your car is, you might go really tight, you might go really loose.
“Typically, the fast lane is up top, but then you have to really adjust your line to what your balance is doing. I’ve got to drive a little bit better here (Sunday) than I have in the previous Kansas races, but I definitely have the car to do it.”
Bell enters the Round of 12 second in the standings, 24 points above the current cut line for the Round of 8. Coming off his dominating victory at Bristol, top-seeded Kyle Larson will start 11th on Sunday.
Gibbs and third-place starter Kyle Busch (178.643 mph) were the only two non-Playoff drivers to advance to the final round during Saturday’s time trials.
Tyler Reddick, third in the standings, will occupy the fourth spot on the grid, followed by Joey Logano, William Byron, defending series champion Ryan Blaney, four-time Kansas winner Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Daniel Suárez.
Larson won the 2024 spring race at Kansas, while Reddick is the defending winner of this event.
Playoff drivers Alex Bowman, Austin Cindric and Chase Elliott will start 12th, 17th and 38th, respectively. Elliott was down a cylinder in practice and qualifying, necessitating an engine change.
After swap, Chase Briscoe’s new pit crew has much to prove
The pit crew servicing Chase Biscoe’s car this weekend won’t be the same group that helped propel him into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs with an 11th-hour win at Darlington and subsequently into the Round of 12.
Briscoe learned Monday of a swap that will bring the crew of the No. 4 Ford of Josh Berry to his No. 14 Mustang. Briscoe is the only Stewart-Haas Racing driver to have qualified for the Playoffs this season.
“The pit crew thing is tough, because the guys that I’ve had have been on it for the last year and a half… they got changed whenever (Kevin) Harvick was in the Playoffs, so I’m back kind of with my original guys,” Briscoe said.
From Berry’s car, Briscoe gets front tire changer Daniel Coffey, rear tire changer Daniel Smith, tire carrier Mason Flynt, fueler Evan Marchal and jackman Brandon Banks.
Berry will be working with front tire changer Shayne Pipala, rear tire changer Dakota Ratcliff, tire carrier Jon Bernal, fueler Corey Coppola, and jackman Kap Fletcher.
“Last week was a struggle, right?” Briscoe said of his pit crew’s performance in last Saturday’s Round of 16 elimination race at Bristol. “We had a couple of bad pit stops, but there’s tons of races that I have bad mistakes, too, and it’s just a tough situation all the way around.
“You don’t want guys to be on the 14 and get kicked off, but that’s the decision that was made and you’ve got to just try to move on from it. I told Josh on the way over here today that your pit crew has got to be on it this weekend. They’ve got a lot to prove.”
Complicating Briscoe’s weekend is his status on baby watch. He and wife Marissa are expecting twins.
“If I get a call, I told her the earliest I’ll probably be home is 7 o’clock by the time I would get on a plane,” Briscoe said. “Coach Joe Gibbs (whom Briscoe will drive for next year) has been super awesome about telling me I can use his plane if something happens. I have to practice. I have to qualify, and I have to race.
“So, yeah, I mean, I’m here. We’re in the Playoffs. Obviously, if I wasn’t in the Playoffs, I would be home if something happened. The contingency plan is I’m here to race for championship. Marissa understands that.
“It obviously would get tricky if it comes at certain times, but I even told (crew chief) Richard (Boswell) if it happens during the race, don’t tell me. Just tell me as soon as we take the checkered flag, “Hey look, Marissa went into labor,’ so I can get out of the car and just go as fast as I can.”
Hendrick Motorsports drivers committed to open-book policy
In last Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, all five Chevrolet drivers advanced to the Round of 12 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
That includes all four drivers from Hendrick Motorsports, who are competitors as well as teammates. As such, they are chasing the same prize, the Bill France Cup symbolic of the series championship.
That said, the four drivers and their teams at HMS have been remarkably helpful to each other as the season has progressed.
“I feel like it’s always a really open book with us,” said William Byron, driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. “I feel like about since 2021 when Rudy (Fugle, Byron’s crew chief) and (teammate) Kyle (Larson) came on board, it’s really been an open book.
“So we’ve shared a lot of notes. I feel like our setups are pretty similar, and that’s been the case for a little while now.”
On the track, it’s more difficult for the teammates to work together, even at a track like Talladega (the second track in the Round of 12) where cars need to team up in order to pass.
“We try to, for sure,” Byron said. “We try to draft together, but you always kind of get mixed in with other guys, and you just have to try to make your lane go forward.
“It’s hard, but definitely pitting together and strategy, we do all that stuff together, for sure.”
Denny Hamlin needs to make his mark in first two Round of 12 races
To say that the Charlotte Roval hasn’t been kind to Denny Hamlin is a bit of an understatement.
The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota finished fifth on the infield/oval hybrid road course in 2021, but otherwise his best result in six starts was 12th in 2018.
That’s why Hamlin hopes he’s in a strong position to advance to the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs before the series races at the Roval on Oct. 13. That requires strong showings Sunday at Kansas and Oct. 6 at Talladega.
The Roval has undergone configuration changes designed to create more passing zones, and that’s a further complication.
“Certainly, the Roval will be a challenge, but it’s going to be a challenge for everyone to learn the new track,” Hamlin said. “Yeah, we want to get as much business as we can done over the next two weeks. No doubt about it. You always want to have a bigger buffer going into that final race (of the round), just simply because of the flip-flopping that can go on during stages there.
“Passing at the Roval has been extremely, extremely hard. We’ve seen guys that stay out for stage points do not make it back up to the front no matter how good their car is. So, I just think, generally speaking, you want to have some sort of buffer going into that track so you can play strategy multiple ways.”
Starting Line Up by Row
Kansas Speedway
Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet
Provided by NASCAR Statistics - Saturday, 9/28/2024 @ 03:06 PM Eastern
Driver Date Time Speed
Track Race Record: Chase Elliott 10/21/18 02:38:02 152.057
Pos Car Driver Team Time Speed
Row 1: 1 20 Christopher Bell (P) Rheem Toyota 30.111 179.336
2 54 Ty Gibbs Monster Energy Toyota 30.151 179.099
Row 2: 3 8 Kyle Busch BetMGM Chevrolet 30.228 178.642
4 45 Tyler Reddick (P) DraftKings Toyota 30.207 178.767
Row 3: 5 22 Joey Logano (P) Shell Pennzoil Ford 30.333 178.024
6 24 William Byron (P) Valvoline Chevrolet 30.295 178.247
Row 4: 7 12 Ryan Blaney (P) Wurth Ford 30.454 177.317
8 11 Denny Hamlin (P) FedEx Toyota 30.300 178.218
Row 5: 9 14 Chase Briscoe (P) Mahindra Tractors Ford 30.688 175.965
10 99 Daniel Suarez (P) Worldwide Express Chevrolet 30.315 178.130
Row 6: 11 5 Kyle Larson (P) HendrickCars.com Chevrolet 30.278 178.347
12 48 Alex Bowman (P) Ally Chevrolet 30.452 177.328
Row 7: 13 23 Bubba Wallace Columbia Sportswear Company Toyota 30.299 178.224
14 77 Carson Hocevar # Premier Security Chevrolet 30.476 177.189
Row 8: 15 71 Zane Smith # Focused Health Chevrolet 30.316 178.124
16 43 Erik Jones AdventHealth Toyota 30.526 176.898
Row 9: 17 2 Austin Cindric (P) Menards/Moen Ford 30.319 178.106
18 47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Dillons/NOS Energy Drink Chevrolet 30.535 176.846
Row 10: 19 19 Martin Truex Jr. Bass Pro Shops Toyota 30.341 177.977
20 1 Ross Chastain Kubota Chevrolet 30.607 176.430
Row 11: 21 34 Michael McDowell Horizon Hobby Ford 30.387 177.708
22 3 Austin Dillon Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet 30.634 176.275
Row 12: 23 7 Justin Haley Gainbridge Chevrolet 30.492 177.096
24 10 Noah Gragson Bed Bath & Beyond Ford 30.664 176.102
Row 13: 25 17 Chris Buescher Fastenal Ford 30.526 176.898
26 6 Brad Keselowski Solomon Plumbing Ford 30.716 175.804
Row 14: 27 51 Corey LaJoie Children's Mercy Hospital Ford 30.594 176.505
28 21 Harrison Burton Menards/Dutch Boy Ford 30.780 175.439
Row 15: 29 4 Josh Berry # Bed Bath & Beyond Ford 30.596 176.494
30 31 Daniel Hemric South Point Hotel and Casino Chevrolet 30.809 175.273
Row 16: 31 42 John Hunter Nemechek Pye Barker Fire & Safety Toyota 30.654 176.160
32 16 Ty Dillon(i) FitRx Chevrolet 30.952 174.464
Row 17: 33 38 Todd Gilliland Rasmussen Air & Gas Energy Ford 30.789 175.387
34 15 Kaz Grala # Remixers.com/Xemex Ford 31.172 173.232
Row 18: 35 84 Jimmie Johnson Family Dollar/Dollar Tree Toyota 30.892 174.803
36 44 JJ Yeley(i) Urban Racing School Chevrolet 31.656 170.584
Row 19: 37 41 Ryan Preece HaasTooling.com Ford 30.934 174.565
38 9 Chase Elliott (P) UniFirst Chevrolet 32.345 166.950
Did Not Qualify: None.
Manufacturer Starting Lineup DNQs Manufacturer Starting Lineup DNQs
Chevrolet 15 0 Ford 14 0
Toyota 9 0
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series
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