Chastain overtakes Truex on late restart to win NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – Ross Chastain took the lead from Martin Truex Jr. on a late restart to win the NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway, where almost everyone still in the playoffs had to overcome problems to get into the race come most of their Sunday.

William Byron was unable to chase down Chastain after taking the lead with 20 laps to go, although the Hendrick Motorsports driver still ended up with the best finish of the 12 to advance to the second round of the postseason qualify.

Chastain celebrated his first win of the season with his signature watermelon smash on the first stretch.

“We built on that,” he said. “We weren’t the best in qualifying this weekend, but we won the race.”

The retiring Truex, who retired at Bristol last week, finished third in his final race at Kansas. Ryan Blaney had a loose left wheel in the closing stages but recovered to finish fourth, giving the defending champion’s postseason hopes a big boost.

Ty Gibbs finished fifth, followed by four other playoff contenders. William Byron finished sixth, pole sitter Christopher Bell recovered from a few scrapes on the wall to finish seventh, Denny Hamlin secured eighth place after two pit road problems, and Chase Elliott finished ninth after starting at the back of the field due to an engine change.

“Considering how we started yesterday and last, it could have been a lot worse,” Elliott said. “But I’m always on the side that our car was good enough. I felt like it could have been a lot better. But we’ll take it.”

Kyle Busch appeared to finally be able to extend his winning streak to 20 seasons with a Cup Series win when he caught and passed Ross Chastain with 64 laps to go. But as he returned to the lead after the pit stops, Busch was edged out by Chase Briscoe, who struggled to stay on the lead lap. This caused him to hit the wall and slide down the back stretch with 30 laps to go.

Busch finished 19th, extending his winning streak to 51 races dating back to last year in St. Louis.

“I think I was in too much of a hurry,” he said. “I mean, I’m deaf. I don’t know what to do.”

Kyle Larson may have had the longest day of all. The winner from Bristol suffered a puncture on his right rear wheel after 18 laps of the race, causing him to hit the wall. The damage appeared to be minimal and his Hendrick Motorsports team continued to work on it the rest of the race. But he still finished 26th, just behind fellow playoff contenders Briscoe and Tyler Reddick.

Austin Cindric had to pit twice at the end of the first stage due to a loose wheel, but was back in the race when his left rear failed near the end of the second stage and he spun on the backstretch. He finished the race four laps behind in 34th place.

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Byron moved to the top of the playoff points list with Laney and Bell six points behind him, and Larson is another 10 points behind. Joey Logano sits in the eighth and final spot above the cutoff, four points ahead of Reddick and 14 ahead of Daniel Suarez. Briscoe and Cindric are the other drivers in danger with two races remaining until the next cutoff.

Set the pace

Eight years after retiring from the sport, Carl Edwards was back at Kansas Speedway to drive the pace car. He never won a Cup Series race at the track west of his hometown of Columbia, Missouri, but he won a Truck Series race 20 years ago.

“I thought it was just going to be a ceremonial ‘Grand Marshal’ type pace car thing,” Edwards said, “but they made me come over this morning and give a lesson. A little more pressure than I expected.”

Next

NASCAR continues the Cup Series playoffs next Sunday at Talladega. Blaney won a year ago, beating Kevin Harvick after a last-lap accident that also included Elliott, Briscoe, Cindric and Riley Herbst.

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