Bearden Breakdown: Hollywood Casino 400

By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor

Post-race review and analysis from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.

Who Won? 

Chase Elliott. He worked his way to the front and fended off a late challenge from Kyle Busch to secure his second win in the Round of 12.

Who Claimed the Stages?

Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick. Logano took care of business from the pole early on, while Harvick dominated the middle stages of the race.

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Chase Elliott’s Big Three

Remember when Chase Elliott was a winless third-year prospect in danger of fading away because he seemingly couldn’t close out races? How about when Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) were championship afterthoughts, at risk of clinging to the hopes of another magical Jimmie Johnson-Chad Knaus playoff run for a shot at a Championship 4 appearance?

Those were the storylines in the HMS camp as recently as three months ago. But much has changed since then.

The Johnson and Knaus pairing are soon to be no more. HMS are showing more speed, and a three-win Elliott has given Chevrolet a championship hope.

Elliott finally broke through for his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win in August at Watkins Glen International, beating out the Big Three’s Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch en-route to an emotional road course celebration.

The Georgian still had his detractors after that win, and they had at least a few fair points to cling to. Elliott’s debut triumph had come at a road course, far removed from the standard NASCAR race. An argument could be made that Elliott still struggled to close out races because he’d nearly thrown the race away with a last-lap mistake in Turn 1. HMS was still struggling at the time, and there were fears the win would be little more than a one-off celebration amid a disappointing season.

However in the time since, Elliott and the No. 9 team have set about proving their growth is no fluke. Save for a couple disappointing days at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, they have been one of the top groups in the garage area through the late summer and fall.

Elliott’s earned 10 top-10s in the past 13 races, including seven top-fives. He’s brought home three wins in his last 11 starts, surging into the championship picture as a potential favorite less than three months after listening to fans and media wonder if he would reach 100 Cup starts before his first win.

The opening round of the playoffs was a challenge. Elliott fell in danger early with a 36th-place finish in Las Vegas, and had to squeak into the Round of 12 with a sixth-place run at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. But the second round proved to be Elliott’s best in three postseason appearances.

One year removed from a late collapse against Busch at Dover, Elliott redeemed himself by securing his first oval Cup win in the same event. The victory locked Elliott into the Round of 8, allowing the 22-year-old to rest easy after a 31st-place run at Talladega that would have left him teetering on the bubble otherwise.

Just like at Dover last fall, Busch closed in on Elliott for the lead as the laps wound down. But unlike last year Elliott was able to adapt and hold Busch at bay, staying ahead of the 2015 Cup champion as the pair traversed lapped traffic. Elliott ultimately pulled away in the closing laps for a comfortable victory.

“Definitely a big win, they’re all big, the road to Watkins Glen was so hard, then the past couple months, being like they’ve been, it’s been surreal,” Elliott said. “You have to appreciate them.  You don’t know when or if you’re ever going to win another race.  I’m going to be excited today as I’ve been, enjoy the as much as Watkins Glen or Dover.”

After more than two years of near misses and disappointment, Elliott’s finally begun to close out races. He’s claimed three wins in his past 11 starts – a count that ties him with Brad Keselowski for the most victories during the stretch.

The young star has been in position to win numerous times in his short Cup career. But for the first time Elliott’s finally begun to capitalize on them – even with the biggest names in the sport attempting to stop him.

“I was just glad that the opportunity arose, to be honest with you,” Elliott said of his second late-race battle with Busch. “It wasn’t easy.  I think those days you learn from, you’re going to get better from more so than the days you have a five‑second lead, you’re out there to go win the race.

“I’ve really enjoyed the pressure of the Dover restarts, the closing laps today, Martin Truex racing for the win at Watkins Glen.  That’s been a lot of fun.  That’s what it should be.  Shouldn’t be easy.  It’s not an easy thing.  It’s way too hard to win these races to not appreciate them, enjoy those moments.”

Elliott leaves Kansas as Chevrolet’s lone remaining playoff contender. He sits fourth in the standings, three points to the good.

That gives Elliott a chance to point his way to his first Championship 4. But after his recent streak of success, the second-generation driver has other plans in mind.

“The points game is nice I guess to play,” he said. “Really you just need to care about winning.  If you’re trying to win, putting yourself in position to win, that’s way more important than just barely trying to squeak through.

“Having the ability to win, do it weekly, putting yourselves in those positions week by week is the most important thing.  If we can do that these next three weeks, I think we can give ourselves a chance.”

The Big Test

The “Big Three” — Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. — entered the playoffs as championship favorites, all but guaranteed to march their way into the Championship 4.

They’ll all have a chance to do just that in the Round of 8. But their playoff climb is growing increasingly arduous.

Harvick, Busch and Truex each clinched a spot in the penultimate round of the playoffs after Sunday’s race in Kansas, securing positions on points. Harvick and Busch moved on with little issue, while Truex held on in a nail biter despite finishing 15th and 23rd in the first two races of the round.

There have been issues along the way, but everything has largely gone to plan for the Big Three thus far.

That may change soon.

Lost in the midst of the focus on eliminations is the fact that Busch’s September win at Richmond International Raceway is the lone triumph for any of the Big Three in the first six races of the postseason. All told they’ve claimed just two of the past 11 races, after winning 16 of the opening 21 events.

The speed has often still been there. Harvick, Busch and Truex have combined to lead 841 of the 1,645 laps contested in the postseason thus far.

What’s been missing is the execution.

Truex was the dominant driver of the trio in the Round of 16, pacing the field for a combined 264 laps in the opening three races. Yet the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team let the first two events slip away before being crashed out spectacularly in the final turn of the round finale.

The Round of 12 wasn’t as kind to the New Jersey native. Two subpar runs at Dover and Talladega meant Truex needed a strong run at Kansas to stay afloat. Early on it didn’t appear it would happen, but the defending Cup champion rose into the top five late to keep his playoff push intact.

The lame duck team will get a chance to make their third Championship 4 appearance over the next three races. But Truex knows they’ll need to elevate their performance down the stretch to make their hopes come to fruition.

“We just know we got to be better and we all know it,” Truex said. “I know it. (Jeff) Jazzy (Curtis, engineer) and Cole (Pearn, crew chief) know it. We all know and we’ll do whatever it takes. It was a tough weekend, but we’ve had a really – the playoffs haven’t been good to us this year. We’ve really battled a lot of adversity.

“A lot of things working against us. The last two weeks are no exception. To get wrecked at Dover and then not even be able to race at Talladega was tough. With that said, to be able to be moving on still with all those troubles – I feel like we’re fortunate and we need to fix those things and make our own luck and figure out how to run better.”

Harvick was the dominant one in the Round of 12, leading at least 46 laps in each of the round’s trio of races with a No. 4 Ford capable of contending in each event. But fuel mileage woes doomed the 2014 Cup champ at Talladega, and dominant days at Dover and Kansas were undone by pit road mistakes – Sunday’s being a speeding penalty from Harvick.

“That was my fault,” Harvick said. “I tried to get a little too much and wound up going too fast. We will take it one week at a time. We have had fast cars and whether it is speeding on pit road or flat tires or valve stems or fuel, we haven’t put together a full day except for Richmond.

“Hopefully we have gotten all that out of our system and we can go to Martinsville and start off good.”

Busch has been the most consistent of the trio, but outside of a late surge to victory in Richmond the Nevadan has also fallen short. Sunday’s runner-up run in Kansas was just his second top-five of the playoffs, following a streak of 16 top-fives in 26 regular season races.

The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran isn’t worried heading into the Round of 8, but acknowledged that his team had slight improvements to make after letting a potential eighth victory of 2018 slip away.

“I feel like it’s our best round,” Busch said of the Round of 8. “We run well at all three of those places and we won at Texas in the spring, we won Martinsville last fall and Phoenix has been getting better for us too. We just need to continue to execute and do a good job and make sure that we mind our Ps and Qs.

“There’s certainly some areas that we need to clean up right now and continue to get better because when you get to Homestead – you’ve got to get there first – but when you get there, you better be picture perfect, so hopefully we can get it all sorted out.”

The Big Three haven’t fallen just yet. They’ve all continued to show the pace necessary to win races and contend for the title in the final quartet of Cup races during various stretches of the postseason, and their playoff point totals will make them difficult to overcome for the other five remaining playoff contenders.

But their failure to execute at the end of races could cost one or more of the trio a trip to the Championship 4, particularly if a few other playoff contenders make their way to victory lane. The road to Homestead is nearly complete, but the margin for error gets a bit smaller each week.

Chase Elliott showed that on Sunday, and he intends to do so again over the next three races.

“If we just keep running with them every week, I think we’ll give ourselves a chance,” Elliott said of the trio. “We’re going to keep the hammer down, try to keep as much pressure as on we can, see where it plays out.”

Stewart Haas survives Kansas with all four teams intact

Stewart Haas Racing became just the second team in the elimination playoff era to place four drivers in the Round of 8 on Sunday, squeezing three of their drivers into the field on points while Aric Almirola moved on with his Talladega win.

In the end, their strong runs last week in Alabama proved to be the difference.

Almirola and Kevin Harvick were essentially locks going into the day, with the first through with a win and the latter sitting pretty on points. But Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch entered the 400-mile race vulnerable after difficult results earlier in the round.

Bowyer started the round filled with disappointment, losing out on a strong run at Dover after suffering a flat tire and costing teammate Almirola the win with a late caution. Both he and Busch had closed ground in Talladega, but running out of fuel on the last lap left Busch with a 14th-place effort and a slim advantage heading into Kansas.

The Round of 12 finale proved difficult for both drivers. Martin Truex Jr. spent the majority of the day teetering on the playoff bubble, but in the closing laps it was Busch and Bowyer that found themselves in danger.

Bowyer faded over course of the race, dropping outside of the top 10 in the later stages en-route to a 13th-place result. Busch showed pace, but fell into a bubble position mid-race when an uncontrolled tire penalty took him off of the lead lap.

Ryan Blaney closed ground in the points battle with strong stage performances and Kyle Larson nearly surged to the lead in the waning moments of the race, but both drivers ultimately fell short of advancing.

Their failures allowed Busch and Bowyer to continue on – if barely.

“It was enough, barely,” Bowyer said. “We were lucky really. It was ugly. I wanted to be better than that. I don’t know. I don’t know what I am missing here. It isn’t my guys. They are giving me good cars. They are fast. I just can’t figure out how to get around this damn place.”

Busch echoed Bowyer’s thoughts.

“We (were) an elite eight team when we started Daytona and here we are, we did it,” he said. “It was a rough day in the pits and on the track but we had enough points.”

Their difficult days behind them, the SHR duo can focus on the next three races – where both believe they’re capable of returning to championship form.

“We have to nail it,” Busch said. “We have to qualify well, execute well and have lady luck on our side. We are looking forward to it. This is what we have built up to all year with our Fords. Thanks to Monster and thanks to Haas we are right there.”

Bowyer will get a chance to keep his season going at Martinsville  – the site of his first win for SHR in the spring.

“If I can put together Martinsville and Phoenix like I am capable of and run Texas like we are capable of, I think we can be in Homestead,” Bowyer said.

SHR have an opportunity for a special postseason run with half of the Round of 8 field in their shop. The organization would serve themselves well not to celebrate prematurely, though. The first team that accomplished the feat — Joe Gibbs Racing in 2016 — failed to bring home the championship at season’s end.

Other Notes

• Will Kyle Larson ever make it to Homestead-Miami Speedway with a shot at the title? Larson suffered a Round of 12 playoff exit for the second-straight season on Sunday, ending his chance at a title in his most consistent year. Larson hasn’t had the wins and top-tier results of last season, but his 12.3 average finish to date is the best of the Californian’s five year career.
• Erik Jones must be wondering what could have been this season. The Michigander has been one of the best drivers since the turn of the summer, with six top-fives in the past 12 races. A crash at Las Vegas and issues at the Roval ended his championship quest before it had a chance to truly begin, but after elimination Jones bounced back with a 5.33 average finish in the Round of 12. Keep an eye on this young Toyota star next season.
• Brad Keselowski was the first to point out that his No. 2 Ford was rarely the fastest car during his three-race win streak at the start of the postseason. That same lack of pace may well have been his undoing, as his Team Penske group couldn’t overcome a fuel mileage miscalculation at Talladega with strong performances at Dover or Kansas.
• For all the talk of unpredictability with the NASCAR playoffs, four Cup stars have proven that consistent contention is possible in the modern postseason. Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Joey Logano have combined to make 16 Round of 8 appearances in the first five years of the playoff format, including 10 berths in the Championship 4. The quartet all still have a chance at the title this year.
• He may have suffered an early playoff elimination, but Austin Dillon has continued to string together decent performances through the postseason. The Daytona 500 winner has tallied four of his top eight finishes of the season during the opening six races of the playoffs, including an 11th-place run at Kansas.
• If you’re looking for an underfunded group making incremental gains, check out the No. 00 StarCom Racing team. They’ve managed four top-30 finishes in the six playoff races with no DNFS, an impressive streak considering they only managed a top 30 every 2.6 races during the regular season, with five DNFs during the stretch.