Busch Claims Kansas Victory while Tires Claim Numerous Victims

Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway was a great example of the NextGen car improving the quality of racing on mile-and-a-half tracks. The race was full of side-by-side racing, 3 and 4-wide restarts, and lots of passing. However, the event also served as a glaring reminder that the new low-profile tires are problematic without inner liners, with no less than 7 different drivers suffering flat left rears that put them several laps down.

LAP 1: Christopher Bell took pole position in qualifying and led the field to the green flag. Bell held onto P1 after passing the start line and began pulling away from the field.

CAUTION – LAP 5: The first caution came out early when the #14 of Chase Briscoe became the first victim of a flat, left-rear tire, causing him to spin sideways through the infield grass on the front stretch. Luckily for the #14, the splitter did not dig into the grass so Briscoe did not sustain any damage from the incident.

CAUTION – LAP 33: BJ McLeod in the #78 triggered the second caution when his left-rear tire went flat and caused him to spin on the front stretch.  Mcleod’s roof flap broke off during the spin, forcing him to retire from the race as the flap is mandated for safety reasons.

CAUTION – LAP 61: The third yellow flag of the race was waved for yet another flat tire – this time, it was Daniel Suarez, who was racing in 4th place when the incident occurred. Suarez made contact with the outside wall and had to pit for repairs and fresh tires, which put him back on track 3 laps down. Just as the caution came out, Christopher Bell also radioed to his team that he had a flat left-rear tire and had to pit. This allowed Kyle Busch to take over the lead.

STAGE 1 END – LAP 80: Kyle Busch won the stage and picked up the playoff point. Behind him, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, and William Byron rounded out the Top 5 and picked up points as well. After pitstops during the caution, Chastain took the lead for the restart but was quickly passed by Byron.

LAP 112: William Byron also fell victim to the flat left-rear phenomenon while he was leading. This caused him to pull to the apron and slow down, giving up the lead to Kurt Busch

CAUTION – LAP 125: After making his scheduled pit stop under green, Kevin Harvick in the #4 exited pit road and immediately spun while trying to rejoin the track, which brought out the caution flag.

STAGE 2 END – LAP 165: Kurt Busch held on to win the stage and collected the playoff point. Behind him, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric, and Chase Elliott rounded out the Top 5 and picked up points as well.

CAUTION – LAP 195: While racing in 5th place, the #9 of Chase Elliott became yet another victim of a flat left-rear tire as he spun in Turn 3, creating large clouds of smoke before coming to a stop in the grass. Elliott’s Chevrolet Camaro got stuck and had to be towed back to pit road, where he fell 3 laps down.

CAUTION – LAP 230: The final caution of the day came when oil was reported on the racing surface, triggering NASCAR to wave the yellow in order to clean the fluid. The leaders came down pit-road a final time, with Kyle Lason taking the top spot for the restart, Kyle and Kurt Busch taking P2 and P3 respectively.

LAP 259: With 8 laps remaining, Kurt Busch finally caught Larson and passed him cleanly for the lead in Turn 2.

CHECKERED FLAG – LAP 267: Busch sailed to a 1.4-second advantage and took the checkered flag to claim his first win of 2022 and snap a 27-race winless streak.

RESULTS: 

1. Kurt Busch
2. Kyle Larson
3. Kyle Busch
4. Denny Hamlin
5. Christopher Bell
6. Martin Truex Jr
7. Ros Chastain
8. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
9. Alex Bowman
10. Bubba Wallace
11. Austin Cindric
12. Ryan Blaney
13. Austin Dillon
14. Brad Keselowski
15. Kevin Harvick
16. William Byron
17. Joey Logano
18. Noah Gragson
19. Corey Lajoie
20. Ty Dillon
21. Harrison Burton
22. Cole Custer
23. Michael McDowell
24. Chase Briscoe
25. Todd Gilliland
26. Aric Almirola
27. Chris Buescher
28. Josh Bilicki
29. Chase Elliott
30. Tyler Reddick
31. JJ Yeley
32. Erik Jones
33. Daniel Suarez
34. Cody Ware
35. Justin Haley
36. BJ Mcleod