NASCAR Cup Series: Winners and losers from the 2018 KC Masterpiece 400 at Kansas
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series visited Kansas on Saturday for the KC Masterpiece 400. Who were this week’s winners and losers?
On Saturday, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series went night racing at Kansas Speedway for the KC Masterpiece 400. It was a race that lacked excitement for long stretches, but it also featured a fascinating ending, with the last 30 or so laps filled with strategy calls, close racing and mishaps.
In the end, Kevin Harvick won his fifth race of this season, passing Martin Truex Jr., who won both Kansas races last season, coming to the white flag. Kyle Larson led the most laps and looked like he could finally get Chevrolet back to victory lane at a mile and a half track, but an incident with Ryan Blaney put him back in the field and he could only manage to drive back up to fourth place.
Which drivers left Kansas feeling good? Who had a bad day?
Winners from Kansas
Kevin Harvick
Well, duh! Harvick now has five wins in the first 12 races, which puts him on pace for 15 wins over the course of the full season. It seems impossible that he would get to that number in a normal season, but this is shaping up to be a year in which strange things like that can happen since the Chevrolet teams have struggled so much. In NASCAR’s modern era, only two drivers have even reached 13 victories — Richard Petty and Jeff Gordon.
Martin Truex Jr.
It was a pretty forgettable day for Truex Jr. until he stayed out on a late caution while the leaders came down pit road. He looked like he was going to be able to hold off Kevin Harvick near the end and earn his third straight Kansas win, but Harvick and his fresh tires was too much. It was still a good strategy call that gave him a second place finish with a car that hadn’t looked like a top five car.
Erik Jones
The broadcasting team referenced Jones’s past struggles at Kansas a lot on Saturday. In three previous races at the track, he had a best finish of 22nd place, and he had also spun every time he had raced there. One of his goals during this race was to keep the car clean and finish the race. He did both things, staying out of trouble and finishing seventh. It was his first top 10 finish since he finished in fourth at Texas.
Losers from Kansas
Ryan Blaney
Blaney had a great run going, but he made contact with Kyle Larson while fighting for third place, which cut down ones of his tires and forced him to hit the wall. He saw his day end with a 37th place finish. Blaney has just one top 10 finish in the last five races. He was third in points after Texas, but now he’s back in ninth.
William Byron
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Byron took two tires during a late caution flag period in hopes of turning that track position into a top 10 finish. Instead, he ended up on top of Ryan Newman’s car. That Byron was able to walk away fine from a terrifying crash is a victory for the young driver, but he was in line for a solid finish before the accident pushed him back to 33rd place.
Matt Kenseth
Kenseth was also caught up in that William Byron wreck, but he hadn’t been running well at the time and was mired multiple laps down. In his return to the sport, he never looked competitive. He was thoroughly outrun by his teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and didn’t flash the driving skills that made him a one-time (not, as one Fox announcer said before the race, two-time) Cup Series champion.
Next: Top 10 NASCAR drivers of all-time
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series takes a break from its regular action next weekend with the Monster Energy All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 19th. The Monster Energy Open starts at 5:00 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1 and the All-Star Race starts at 8:00 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.