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For 26 races, the entire NASCAR Cup Series field had worked to be among the 16 drivers with the opportunity to compete for a championship when the playoffs began at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Then came the matter of surviving the Round of 16 and ensuring that their championship ambitions were more than just a fleeting fancy. For four drivers, it ended up being just that after the checkered flag at Bristol, while 12 drivers now continue their march towards Phoenix at one of the most competitive tracks in all of NASCAR.

The Round of 12 of the NASCAR playoffs begins at Kansas Speedway with the Hollywood Casino 400, a race that marks the sport's highly-anticipated return to Kansas after the events of this May. The Cup Series' last race at Kansas ended in the closest finish in series history, as Kyle Larson beat Chris Buescher to the finish line by a mere 0.001 seconds -- A finish so close that scoring initially called the race for Buescher before photo review showed that Larson crossed the finish line ahead of him by inches.

That finish has now had four months to settle into the history books, as it surpassed a Cup record for closest finish ever that had stood for 21 years. And with two of the last three Kansas races being settled by last lap passes (and one more decided by a pass coming to the white flag), this race could again provide playoff-altering drama in the final laps.

Where to Watch the NASCAR playoffs at Kansas

  • When: Sunday, Sept. 29
  • Where: Kansas Speedway -- Kansas City, Kansas
  • Start time: 3 p.m. ET
  • TV: USA
  • Live stream: fuboTV (Try for free. Regional restrictions may apply.)

What to Watch

An interesting subnote to the opening race of the second round of the playoffs is that this week marks the first race following what amounts to a very rare "trade" between race teams: Last week at Bristol, it was announced that Justin Haley and Corey LaJoie would swap rides beginning this week, with Haley taking LaJoie's place in the No. 7 for Spire Motorsports and LaJoie stepping into the No. 51 for Rick Ware Racing that Haley had been driving. 

Haley's move to Spire returns him to the team he drove for from 2019 to 2021 and earned his first Cup win for, while LaJoie will be tasked with building Rick Ware Racing in much of the same way he helped turn Spire from a backmarker into a contender. In his previous stint with Spire, Haley had made 34 starts with one win -- an upset at Daytona in which Haley's crew left him on-track under caution while others pitted, successfully gambling that storms in the area would end the race -- one top five, and five top 10s.

The mid-season ride swap between Haley and LaJoie made waves in that compared to stick-and-ball sports where trades are commonplace, such an arrangement is exceptionally rare. The most famous example of such a swap took place in 2003, when Jeff Green was shipped to Dale Earnhardt Inc. to drive the No. 1 that had been driven by Steve Park, who then took Green's place in the No. 30 for Richard Childress Racing.

That move ended up not benefiting either party: Green didn't earn a single top 10 finish at DEI before moving to Petty Enterprises late in the season, while Park only fared slightly better with one top five, two top 10s and a pole before moving down to the Craftsman Truck Series for 2004. In this instance, the hope is that Haley will be able to build chemistry with Spire in anticipation of becoming a contender in 2025, while LaJoie and Ware will spend the remaining races of this year seeing if they are a good fit for one another.

News of the Week

  • NASCAR announced that they have reinstated Richard Stenhouse, the father of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., after he had been indefinitely suspended by the sanctioning body following a post-race brawl between Stenhouse and Kyle Busch after the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro in May. The elder Stenhouse, a non-competitor, had violated the NASCAR Code of Conduct for engaging with Busch in close quarters combat.
  • NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer admitted that the sanctioning body was "baffled" by a lack of tire wear last week at Bristol despite bringing back the same tire compound that had produced extreme levels of falloff to spawn a dramatic tire management race at the track in March. With NASCAR pursuing greater tire wear as a means of improving the Next Gen car's racing product on short tracks and road courses, the lack of tire falloff compared to other races like Richmond and Watkins Glen proved confounding to officials.

    "We'll dive into that with our meetings today with our folks at Goodyear to see what maybe they have been able to come up with over the last couple of days in their meetings," Sawyer told SiriusXM. "Obviously, we were disappointed as a company for our fans but those are things we'll learn from, figure out what happened, and get that corrected as we go forward."
  • The future of FedEx's sponsorship of Joe Gibbs Racing and Denny Hamlin is in doubt, as Sports Business Journal reported that the shipping giant is expected to further reduce its sponsorship agreement and could potentially end it altogether. FedEx originally joined Joe Gibbs Racing in 2005 when the No. 11 team was created with the late Jason Leffler as the driver, and it would become one of NASCAR's most prolific driver, team, and sponsor combinations of the last 20 years when Hamlin took over the ride late in the season.

Pick to Win

Kyle Larson (+330) -- The fatal flaw of Chris Buescher's efforts to win on the final lap at Kansas in May was that he gave Kyle Larson the opportunity to get to his outside and right up against the wall in the final corner. Kansas suits Larson's driving style perfectly, and he has shown over and over again that he's one of the best at making speed here by riding as close as he possibly can to the outside wall without getting into it.

That mastery of how to drive Kansas has shown up in his results here: His win back in May was the second of his career there, and he also boasts eight top fives, 11 top 10s, an average finish of 12.3 and 702 laps led. He is also on a streak of six top 10s at Kansas in a row, four of which have seen him finish either first or second.