The reality of it is exactly what Kyle Petty said, multiple times, in the post-race show after Sunday afternoon's Hollywood Casino 400 NASCAR Cup Series at Kansas Speedway: if your name wasn't Kyle Larson, you lost.
Larson led 235 of 267 laps around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Kansas City, Kansas oval en route to his second win in three races. All of a sudden, his historic 51-race win drought, the longest ever for a reigning champion, seems like ancient history, even though he still hadn't won since May 2025 up until a few weeks ago.
Larson extended his points lead and is now the championship betting favorite for the first time since the very early stages of the 2026 season as well. But aside from Larson, who were the winners at Kansas, and who were some of the biggest losers?
Winner: Austin Cindric
Nobody expects Austin Cindric to win the championship, so Larson's beatdown wasn't necessarily a devastating blow for him this week. He finished second in what might well have been the most complete race in his NASCAR Cup Series career.
Sure, he was running second at Gateway two years ago before winning on the final lap when teammate Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel. But this runner-up finish happened at a 1.5-mile oval, and we can't ignore the fact that Team Penske have struggled on such tracks this year. Even Joey Logano started on the front row and couldn't finish in the top 10.
Cindric could be well on his way to a career-high finish in the championship standings.
Winner: Possible NASCAR qualifying changes
In a vacuum, no, it's not a good thing that NASCAR qualifying was canceled for the third time in four playoff races.
But what this has done has put the qualifying metric into the spotlight, and while it's the same thing for everyone, many have called out just how ludicrous it is that it is based 70% on one race (the most recent race) and just 30% on the entire season.
Moving forward, I expect this metric to change. Whether it's changed so that the playoff drivers are guaranteed to start in the top 16, a greater value is placed on the full season, or both, I don't believe it will remain the same as it is in 2026 in 2027. And I believe we have the recent run of rainouts to thank for that.
Winner: Daniel Suarez
We're legitimately out of on-track winners, so we're going to go with the guy who is last in the playoff standings, simply because he and wife Julia Piquet gave birth to their first child, a baby boy named Otto, earlier in the week. The 14th place finish on Sunday was probably the last thing on his mind.
Loser: Denny Hamlin
The 1.5-mile intermediate ovals were supposed to be the bread and butter for Denny Hamlin and Toyota, and above all, they were supposed to be where he could make up ground and build a gap over Larson in the standings.
Sure, Hamlin finished third. But nobody wants to hear about third being a "good points day" when Hamlin's points situation changed from one point behind Larson to 26 behind Larson. That's not "good".
Hamlin certainly doesn't want to hear it, and don't look now, but he's now gone three and a half months without a win. He also lost his status as the title favorite for the first time since May. It feels like we've seen this story too many times before to believe that it will be any different for the sport's all-time winningest non-champion.
Loser: Chase Briscoe
The only driver who even had a slight chance to beat Larson on Sunday was Chase Briscoe, who actually passed Larson for the lead late in the race. He appeared to have a better long run car in that stage of the race, yet it took Larson no time at all to get back around the No. 19 Toyota for the lead and ultimately the win.
It was 40-point swing against Briscoe, who would have been 81 points behind Larson, rather than 121, had he held on to win. And he's actually 123 back now, since he made contact with the wall with a few laps remaining and actually fell back to fourth.
Loser: Tyler Reddick
When NASCAR left Kansas Speedway in April, Tyler Reddick was leading the point standings by a country mile and leading the Cup Series in wins with five. Following another trip to Kansas, he is still leading the series in wins with five. The difference? He's 111 points out of the championship lead, he's riding a 21-race win drought, and he just finished 11th in a race where he was simply at a loss for answers.
The driver who had been the championship favorite up until late May has very little reason for optimism over the next six weeks, and the fact that he was as far off the pace as he was at Kansas, where he won five months prior, might be the most alarming point yet from his recent skid.
Loser: Everybody not named Kyle Larson
Not to copy Kyle Petty word for word, but that's about the size of it. The guy who entered the race with his first points lead of the season extended it by the highest amount possible by recording the first 76-point race of any Cup driver since NASCAR changed its points format (15 extra points for winners) ahead of the 2026 season.
Every single one of the 15 playoff drivers not named Larson lost ground to Larson in the standings. And by the way, two more 1.5-mile ovals, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, are next up on the schedule. Good luck.
The first of those tracks, Las Vegas, is scheduled to host the South Point 400 this Sunday, October 4, with live coverage set to be provided by USA Network beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET.
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