Early Week Driver Rankings for Kansas

The Cup Series playoffs move to the Heartland this week with a trip to Kansas Speedway. The Cup Series competed at Kansas in May. There were four drivers who led over 20 laps; with no driver leading more than 85 laps (Kyle Larson led 85 laps, Martin Truex Jr. led 79 laps, Denny Hamlin led 34 laps and Tyler Reddick led 23 laps). It was a very competitive race that kept fans on the edge of their seats. I expect the same this week. The Hollywood Casino 400 can be seen Sunday at 3 pm ET on USA Network.

NASCAR probably wished they would have kept some of the 1.5-mile tracks on the schedule. The Gen-7 car puts on one heck of a show at these race tracks. It would have been cool to see this car compete at Chicagoland, Kentucky and the old Atlanta track. There are many lead changes at Kansas and that makes it tough to predict. The cream usually rises to the top when the checkered flag is waived, so the playoff drivers should run up front Sunday.

Kansas Speedway is a 1.5-mile, tri-oval track. It has progressive banking that allows the drivers to race at the bottom, the middle and at the top of the track. Usually the drivers end up near the wall at the end of a fuel run. I used the data from the races at Las Vegas, Charlotte and Michigan to help handicap the Hollywood Casino 400. The drivers who ran well in those races should be up front Sunday.

Here are my early week driver rankings for the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas…

Be sure to check back Sundays morning for the updated Driver Rankings.

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