NASCAR Cup Series
Kansas Speedway
Hollywood Casino 400
Team Chevy Post-Race Report
September 27, 2026
Larson Dominates at Kansas Speedway to Earn Second Victory of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Season
Kyle Larson wrapped up a dominate afternoon at Kansas Speedway with a trip to victory lane in the Hollywood Casino 400. The win – Larson’s second of the season and his fourth in NASCAR’s top division at Kansas Speedway – came alongside a perfect day as the reigning champion drove to a stage sweep, clocked-in the fastest lap of the race, recorded 235 of 267 laps led, and tallied the victory to earn a 76-point day. With four races complete, Larson has extended the points lead to 26 points over Denny Hamlin.
A trio of Hendrick Motorsports-powered Chevrolet’s completed the Team Chevy top-10 at the Midwest-based oval. William Byron and the No. 24 team joined Larson with a pair of points-earning stages, going on to earn a seventh-place result. Chase Elliott drove his No. 9 Chevrolet to the team’s 10th top-10 finish of the season as he ended the day with an eighth-place finish.
RACE RECAP:
Stage One:
With yet another practice and qualifying day for the NASCAR Cup Series canceled due to weather, Kyle Larson’s second-place effort last weekend put the reigning champion on the front row of the starting lineup for the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. Lining up on the outside lane, a masterful start saw the No. 5 Chevrolet take the lead on the opening lap and quickly extend his margin to just over three-seconds in only 10 laps around the 1.5-mile circuit. Also showing early speed within that distance was his teammate, William Byron, who turned an eighth-place starting position into a spot within the top-four. With a competition caution slated around the 35-lap marker, Larson continued to set an impressive pace even as he reached lap traffic – ending the green flag run with a 2.8-second cushion over second. While the field hit pit road under the competition caution, it was a four tire call by crew chief Cliff Daniels as the No. 5 pit crew kept their driver in the top position for the restart. Electing the inside lane, it was a drag race with Denny Hamlin for the top position as the pair ran side-by-side for the entirety of the opening lap of the run, but it was the Team Chevy driver that narrowly edged the No. 11 at the line by just .01-seconds to maintain the lead. While Hamlin was able to keep Larson within reach for the beginning portion of the run, the reigning champion progressively started to build his lead as the race reached 20 laps to go in the stage. Despite the added challenge of lap traffic in the closing laps, Larson was able to capitalize on his lead to comfortably take the first green-white checkered flag. Also driving to a points-earning effort in Stage One included three fellow Team Chevy Chase contenders with Carson Hocevar in fourth and teammates, Byron and Chase Elliott, in the seventh and eighth positions, respectively.
Stage Two:
With a call for four tires and fuel under the stage break, the No. 5 pit crew fired off a stop to keep Larson in the top position once again for the start of Stage Two. While Hamlin briefly challenged Larson for the lead on the restart, it was the Team Chevy driver that effortlessly maintained the lead and quickly started to build a gap on the No. 11 within the opening laps. While Larson remained a steady fixture in the command position, Hocevar began to endure a challenging stage when a slow stop under a caution near the midway point saw the driver fall to the 12th position for the restart. But calamity coming to the green flag saw a handful of cars, including Hocevar, go spinning down the frontstretch. Coming to the attention of crew chief Luke Lambert, the No. 77 team went to work on damaged sustained to the right-front splitter. Despite spending a lengthy amount of time on pit road for repairs, the team was able to keep Hocevar on the lead lap for the restart. With a caution-free run to the end of the stage, it was Larson that continued to pace the field en route to a stage sweep.
Final Stage:
The No. 5 pit crew continued to be undefeated in the race off pit road with a quick four tire and fuel stop under the stage break putting Larson back on the front row for the start of the final stage. This time, Larson was accompanied by Toyota’s Chase Briscoe for the restart, but the speed of his Chevrolet-powered machine put him back at the point for the final run of the race. Just past the 200-lap marker and approaching another long green flag run, Briscoe was the first true challenger of the day for Larson as he reached the back bumper of the No. 5 as the pair maneuvered through lap traffic. Approaching the window for the first green flag pit cycle of the day, Daniels called Larson to pit road with 52 laps to go with Briscoe in tow. An 8.7-second stop by the No. 5 pit crew and a strong exit off pit road by Larson saw the team build a solid one-second gap back towards Briscoe as they cycled back to the front of the field and on the horizon of the longest run of the race. Having led all but three laps of the day as the race hit 30 laps to go, a tight battle between the two saw Larson fall to second, but as the race hit single-digits, his speed prevailed as a masterful pass saw Larson regain the lead and never look back en route to his second trip to victory lane of the season.
Team Chevy Unofficial Top-10 Results
Pos. Driver
1st – Kyle Larson
7th – William Byron
8th – Chase Elliott
Chevrolet’s season statistics with 30 NASCAR Cup Series races complete:
Wins: 8
Poles: 6
Top-Fives: 51
Top 10s: 101
Stage Wins: 21
The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase will continue at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the South Point 400 on Sunday, October 4, at 5:30 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on the USA Network, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Post-Race Driver Quotes:
Austin Dillon, No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Finished: 21st
“Proud of everyone on the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops/Winchester Magnum Pheasant Chevrolet team today at Kansas Speedway for fighting until the last lap. We didn’t have practice and qualifying yesterday, so we knew we were going to learn a bit about the car’s balance in the initial laps. We started off a touch loose, but overall good, and then made an adjustment that made me way too tight. The team went back to the drawing board and were able to reverse that and get it to where the car’s balance was pretty good, we were making top-10 lap times and I was driving forward. We’ll make some notes for 2027 and turn our focus to Las Vegas next week.”
Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Finished: 1st
Just kind of describe what it’s like to have such a dominant performance at a racetrack that’s been so good to you.
“Yeah, it was great. Obviously, starting on the front row helped a lot, as well as just controlling the race, having good restarts and great power by our No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy. It wasn’t easy. I know it looked easy at times. There were definitely runs that were easier, but when the sun came out, it got difficult just to maintain my grip. I would stretch out, and then I’d catch traffic and I would just not be very good. I guess that the way that run just played out there, maybe coming out in traffic and the pace being down a little bit helped me live a little bit longer. I think it’s just sometimes easier to be the hunter rather than being hunted. I could see he (Chase Briscoe) was starting to struggle in front of me and still pushing really hard. I was just trying to take it easy, let him make a mistake and build some runs on exit. We were able to do that. Just proud of the team.”
Throughout the course of the day, you expressed a little concern about your car once you come off the top. You worried about lap traffic. What did you finally have to do? Did you figure it out, or was it just a matter of making it work best possible?
“Yeah, I think it’s just kind of a matter of making it work. I did have to change my line up there a lot. Once (Chase) Briscoe got by me, maybe that helped me just discover something that helped me a little bit. I was just not very good when I would catch traffic, but out in clean air, we were amazing.
Huge thank you to everybody at Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet. Congratulations to everybody at the Hendrick Automotive Group too, celebrating their 50th anniversary. We’ve gotten a couple special wins here for Mr. H, and I’m glad to do this one for all the 10,000 plus employees at Hendrick.”
What is that like to have that crew pit on the car and to be able to drive off pit road first?
“Yeah, it takes a team, and our pit crew has been on it all year. They have been ranked towards the top all season. It was a great day on pit road and hopefully they’re leading again. Huge thank you to them. And again, thanks to Cliff Daniels (crew chief), everybody on this No. 5 team for not having any practice and having the balance as good as it was.”
Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Finished: 8th
“It was an improvement from last week, for sure. Our No. 9 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet was pretty good. We had a couple runs there in the middle stages where it got a little tight. I just made a couple bad decisions on restarts, and everything we had gained, I felt like I lost it all right there. We finally started to get our balance back and going the right direction. I think I had given up a bit too much at that point of time.
Overall, it was definitely an improved day from where we’ve been. We just have to try and build on that. Hopefully we can just put some of these solid days together and try to continue to build on the good stuff from the day. There were some high spots for us, more than there has been lately, so we’ll see where it goes.”
William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Finished: 7th
“I thought the speed of our No. 24 Raptor Chevrolet was hard to judge. We were just tight all day, and we couldn’t really get it to rotate on the restarts. I felt like our pit crew was doing a really good job of getting track position on pit road. On every restart, we just couldn’t fire off and couldn’t go with speed. We just fought that throughout the day. I thought our long runs were reasonable, but we still fought some balance issues. We just didn’t have the balance we wanted, but I thought our Chevy was pretty good.”
Is there anything you and Rudy Fugle (crew chief) can work on for the next two intermediate tracks?
“Yeah, we’ll definitely keep working on it. Obviously, we have a good baseline at Hendrick Motorsports now. Congrats to Kyle (Larson, race winner) and the No. 5 team. We just have to keep working.”
Austin Hill, No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Finished: 26th
“Our Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet had speed on the long run, but we struggled on fire off. For the first 15-20 laps, our car was really tight and it would take too long to come in. At the same time, we were at the limit of the rears at the end of a run. If we could have found a way to not lose so much ground at the beginning, I think we could have had a solid finish because most runs, we would drive back forward at the end. We’ll learn from today and try to come back better next season.”
Michael McDowell, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
Finished: 27th
“A messy day here in Kansas, we had a few things not go our way and we fell behind pretty quick. From there, the balance wasn’t where we needed to be to make up the ground we had lost. It’s tough, our Delaware Life Chevrolet showed signs of solid speed early in the day. Once we got pushed back to the back half of the field, it felt like we couldn’t recover from there. I have faith in our group, we have a few more 1.5-mile tracks coming up, so it’s going to be important to maximize those going forward and build into next season.”
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