After a relatively ho-hum weekend at Bristol, the NASCAR playoffs head to Kansas for truly one of its best tracks on the schedule. Kyle Larson simply dominated at Bristol last week. We don’t see that very often given the nature of short-track racing, and the difficulty in maintaining track position there. The race simply wasn’t exciting because there was no tire fall off, cautions were minimal, and passing was almost non-existent. In the end, it was a cutoff race for the playoffs. In Martin Truex Jr.’s final Cup Series season, we saw him get eliminated. Similarly, Ty Gibbs, Harrison Burton, and Brad Keselowski all got bounced as well. But Kansas Speedway produces some of the best racing. Hopefully, this race can redeem what we saw last weekend. Here is this week’s NASCAR DFS Hollywood Casino 400 preview!
Hollywood Casino 400 Preview: The Top Plays
Kyle Larson (#5 Chevrolet)
Full disclosure, we’re kicking things off with Larson and Denny Hamlin once again. I’m sorry. But it’s an intermediate and they’re both good at this track and the comparable ones as well. Larson crushed it at Bristol last week. In the NextGen Era we haven’t seen too many performances like that at Bristol. He led 462 laps with 81 fastest laps. The dominator points alone come out to 151.95 points on DraftKings, pushing his performance to almost 200 fantasy points. Needless to say, you needed him to hit the optimal lineup. Larson pulled off the narrowest victory at Kansas in the Spring, just barely edging out Chris Buescher. We get win equity and the fact that he’s led at least 29 laps in five of his last six races at Kansas.
Denny Hamlin (#11 Toyota)
Hamlin might have the more well-rounded resume at Kansas than Larson. It’s the reason we led off with Hamlin in last year’s Hollywood Casino 400 preview. Hamlin has four career wins at this track and has finished in the top five in six straight races here. He won here in the Spring of 2023 with 34 laps led. He was the runner-up here a year ago with 63 laps led. And this past Spring, he finished fifth and led 71 laps. So there’s consistency here at least. After some bad results, possibly due to his new pup, Hamlin got a strong result and put himself in a good position in the playoffs. He has a very strong chance of winning. That would lock him into the Round of Eight after the first round was a bit frustrating for him.
Christopher Bell (#20 Toyota)
Bell has been quiet, but still finishing well of late. He’s finished sixth or better in six of the last eight races coming into Kansas. On top of that, we know he has the potential to go out and lead 50+ laps in a race. This is a track where Toyota has been outstanding for the last few years. He’s managed to get to the front and lead laps in five straight races at Kansas. Across his last six races here, he’s finished eighth or better in five of them. The outlier result was due to a wreck. But he drives for an elite team and just hasn’t gone to victory lane in over three months. Given the win equity that Toyota has at Kansas, Bell is live and won’t carry as much ownership as the other elite drivers in the field.
Hollywood Casino 400 Preview: Wouldn’t Bet Against Them
Bubba Wallace (#23 Toyota)
There’s something about Kansas that greatly helps the Toyota camp. Kurt Busch, Wallace’s former 23XI Racing teammate, won the first Kansas race in the NextGen car in the Spring of 2022. Later that year, Bubba won here with 58 laps led, his second career Cup Series victory. The following Spring, in 2023, Wallace grabbed a top-five with a handful of laps led. The last couple of races haven’t gone as well for him. That’s always worth mentioning. Bubba is always a high-variance play. But he has noted how much he likes racing here. The Toyota’s have fared well on intermediate tracks, including Kansas which features multiple racing grooves. He has this track circled on his calendar twice a year. He knows he’s capable of winning here.
Alex Bowman (#48 Chevrolet)
Bowman has been rather consistent at this track. He’ll need a good run as he’s currently seven points below the cut line for the next round of the playoffs. But we start a new slate. And we have three races to get through obviously. Bowman has run 13 races with Hendrick Motorsports at Kansas. His worst finish is 18th, which he’s done twice. In every other race he’s finished 11th or better. In the NextGen Era, he has four straight top-10 finishes and earlier this year he started P18 and finished seventh. It’s also worth mentioning he led 107 laps in this race two years ago and finished fourth. That was the year Bubba won. I do think there’s some win equity here. But he won’t be priced up too much and he’s delivered consistent results.
Ross Chastain (#1 Chevrolet)
It hasn’t quite been a banner year for Chastain by any means. In the NextGen Era, he’s usually been good for two wins each year and he’s been a contender. That hasn’t been the case in 2024, but Trackhouse tends to bring fast cars to this track. Chastain isn’t in the playoffs, so all he really is chasing at this point is a win. This past spring, he started on the front row and finished 19th. But he did lead 43 laps. Back in 2022, he grabbed a pair of seventh-place finishes and in the spring of 2023, he finished top five. The organization might be investing more resources into Daniel Suarez’s car since he’s still alive for the playoffs, but he sits six points below the cut line. I do like both for this race. Chastain could certainly fly under the radar.
The Values and Sleepers
Noah Gragson (#10 Ford)
Gragson has fared better on the intermediate tracks in 2024 than arguably anywhere else. But to his credit, he has momentum coming in after top-12 finishes at Watkins Glen and Bristol. With that said he also had top 12 finishes at larger intermediates like Indianapolis and Michigan. Moreover, he was sixth at Vegas earlier in the year and he finished ninth in the first Kansas race. He won this race two years ago in the NASCAR Xfinity Series prior to his promotion to the Cup Series. There’s almost no win equity here though. Similar to Chastain, Gragson has a teammate still in the playoffs who might just get more attention regarding the setup of the car. But I do think he’s live for his third straight top 12 finish ahead of Talladega next weekend.
Austin Dillon (#3 Chevrolet)
This one bothers me because I never get this guy right. And his last two races here have been terrible. But in this race four years ago he started P17 and finished 11th. In 2021, he grabbed a pair of top 10 finishes, in 2022 he had a pair of top 15 results at Kansas, and even in the spring of 2023 he grabbed another top 10. Now, the last two races here have been bad. But it is worth mentioning, that once Andy Petree retired as competition director for Richard Childress Racing earlier this year, both Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon saw their cars perform better. Keith Rodden took over as the interim director and things have been better across the board. For that reason, I think Dillon could see a similar top 10-15 upside that we saw in previous years.
John Hunter Nemechek (#42 Toyota)
I’m going back to the well with JHN this week. He was a dud last week. But we can make that argument for several drivers that started deep in the field. There simply weren’t enough cautions to keep them on the lead lap. And JHN got loose and spun early and was six laps down early. So yeah, he’s partially to blame! But Kansas has been a good track for him, albeit in a small sample size. He started P29 and finished 13th in the spring which provided for a great DFS score. But even in the Xfinity Series, he does have a pair of wins here in three races with 218 total laps led. He’s in a Toyota, and while he drives for the worst Toyota team, this is still a spot we can pay down for JHN as a value once again.