KANSAS 1
Saturday, April 18 – NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, 7 p.m. ET (CW)
Sunday, April 19– NASCAR Cup Series, 2 p.m. ET (FOX)
Kansas Speedway will host a doubleheader this weekend, highlighted by Sunday’s AdventHealth 400. Ford Racing goes into the event with 749 all-time NASCAR Cup Series victories, which includes nine wins at the mile-and-a-half facility. Joey Logano leads all Ford drivers with three wins while Greg Biffle is next with two.
LOGANO’S KANSAS SUCCESS
Joey Logano has three career NASCAR Cup Series wins at Kansas Speedway, one of five tracks currently on the circuit where he has three or more. The others are Las Vegas (4), Phoenix (4), Michigan (3) and Talladega (3). Qualifying has been a particularly strong suit for the Connecticut native as he’s started first or second on seven occasions and been among the top 10 in 19 of his 33 starts.
KESELOWSKI AND KANSAS
Brad Keselowski has won at 17 different racetracks during his NASCAR Cup Series career, including twice at Kansas Speedway. In 32 career Cup Series starts, the Michigan native has a pair of victories (2011 and 2019), seven top-5 and 15 top-10 finishes. He’s led at least one lap in four of the last five events and is coming off an eighth-place effort the last time the series visited in September.
BLANEY RETURNING TO SITE OF CUP DEBUT
Ryan Blaney made his NASCAR Cup Series debut on May 10, 2014 and it came at Kansas Speedway driving the No. 12 Ford for Team Penske. That marked the first of two starts for Blaney, who started 21st and finished 27th that day. He also ran the fall race at Talladega that season and finished 22nd. Overall, Blaney is still looking for his first Cup win at the intermediate track, but he’s had a pair of top-five runs in the last three races.
GRAGSON TRYING TO COMPLETE KANSAS TRIFECTA
Noah Gragson is still searching for the first NASCAR Cup Series victory of his career and if you’re looking for a place where that could happen, look no further than Kansas Speedway. That’s because the Las Vegas native has posted wins in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (2018) and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (2022). A Cup win on Sunday would make Gragson the second driver to complete the Kansas trifecta, joining Kyle Busch.
SITTING ON 749
The next Ford win will be its 750th all-time in NASCAR’s top series. Ned Jarrett is Ford’s win leader with 43 while Bill Elliott is second with 40. Shirtless Jimmy Florian scored the Blue Oval’s first series victory when he upset the likes of Lee Petty, Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly at Dayton Speedway on June 25, 1950. Florian earned his nickname after getting out of his 1950 flathead Ford without a shirt. Overall, 91 drivers have won at least one series race with Ford, including notable drivers Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty, and Dale Earnhardt.
CHRIS BUESCHER: “It’s been a really good racetrack. I love the fact that we have different lines. It moves around. Most of our mile-and-a-halves at this point have gotten to the point where we can run bottom, middle, top and have different lines and different opportunities to make speed. With that, I think that it’s gonna be a really good measure for us. We’re really optimistic about that one, just knowing how well Vegas went for us and knowing what our program looked like at those style of racetracks last season.”
RACING IN THE DARK
A couple of rain delays and impending darkness couldn’t keep Greg Biffle from winning a shortened Lifelock 400 on Sept. 30, 2007. The race was delayed for more than three hours and NASCAR decided to shorten the distance from 267 laps to 210 laps when it became evident there wouldn’t be enough daylight to finish the event. Biffle passed Kevin Harvick on lap 274, but when Juan Pablo Montoya blew a tire to bring out the caution with four laps to go it appeared he would have to survive a green-white-checker finish in order to win. NASCAR, however, decided to end the race under caution due to darkness. The win was Biffle’s first of the season and snapped a 32-race winless drought.
FORD NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNERS
AT KANSAS
2005 – Mark Martin
2007 – Greg Biffle
2010 – Greg Biffle
2012 – Matt Kenseth (2)
2014 – Joey Logano (2)
2015 – Joey Logano (2)
2018 – Kevin Harvick (1)
2019 – Brad Keselowski (1)
2020 – Joey Logano (2)
FORD NOAPS WINNERS AT KANSAS
2001 – Jeff Green
2002 – Jeff Burton
2012 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
2020 – Chase Briscoe
The Ford Mustang is the world’s best selling sports car and one of its most popular race cars. With Mustang-based race cars competing in international sports car competition (GT3 and GT4), NASCAR, NHRA, Formula Drift, in Supercars, at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and in its own bespoke regional one-make series – Mustang Cup and Mustang Challenge – the platform has an unprecedented global reach. This weekend, 28 Mustang race cars are scheduled to race across all disciplines. Learn more about Mustang at www.FordRacing.com .
