The Same Odds, Two Different Races

Kansas has run 9 Cup races since 2022, and 8 of the 9 winners qualified inside the top-10, an 87.5% rate that Tyler Reddick kept alive from the pole this April. Ross Chastain, from 20th in September 2024, is the only winner who did not, and nobody else in those 9 races won from worse than 8th on the grid. That is a Kansas number and not a Cup number: from 2022 through 2025 the winner at every other track started inside the top-10 in 64.7% of races.

The rest of the field is not as tight. Over the same 4 seasons Kansas ranks 16th of 31 Cup tracks on how closely the finishing order follows the starting order, so a car that qualifies 15th can still race forward. A top-10 starter at Kansas finishes in the top-10 56.3% of the time, against 45.9% at every other track.

Leading the most laps at Kansas has been a bad way to win it. In the 9 races since 2022 the driver who led the most laps has won twice, Kurt Busch in May 2022 and Kyle Larson in May 2025, and the other 7 went to somebody else. Alex Bowman led 107 laps in September 2022 and finished 4th while Bubba Wallace won on 58. Denny Hamlin has led the most laps in each of the last 2 Kansas races, 159 last September and 131 this April, and finished 2nd to Chase Elliott and 4th behind Reddick. Elliott led 24 laps that day. Reddick led 10.

Put those 2 records together and the win on Sunday belongs to the car that qualifies inside the top 10 and is still running there when the last green-flag run starts, whether or not it led the most laps in between. Hamlin and Larson are the 2 drivers most likely to be that car, and they get there by different routes. As of Thursday morning DraftKings Sportsbook had both of them +400 to win.

Hamlin and Larson

Hamlin is the favorite because of what he has done on this size of track all year. Across the 5 mile-and-a-half races of 2026 he has a 2.6 average finish and 391 laps led, and 4 of the 7 races left in the Chase are run on 1.5 miles. His Kansas record is the deepest in the field: 4 wins, the most of anyone entered, a 7.1 average finish across the 9 races since 2022 with 461 laps led, 8 top-10s and 7 top-5s in those 9.

Why is a driver with that record only +400, and not shorter than Larson? Because his last 3 Kansas trophies are missing. Hamlin has been the laps leader in 3 of the last 5 races there, 71 laps in May 2024, 159 last September and 131 this April, and came home 5th, 2nd and 4th. His 1 Kansas win in this car is the May 2023 race, when he started 8th and led 34 laps. The sim reads the speed and not the missing trophies. He projects to finish 4th. His 37.0 projected laps led are the most in the field, his 20.6% win chance is the best in the field, and 76% of his 10,000 runs end inside the top-10, also the best rate of anyone entered.

Where the No. 11 earns those numbers is the long green-flag run. Kansas since 2022 has produced 18 runs of 40 laps or more with Hamlin in the race, and he picks up 4.1 spots on an average one, starting it 7th. Nobody in Sunday’s field gains more. The best of the 18 was September 2024, 24th when the run started and 6th when the caution came out. The car is rarely the quickest one on new tires and it is usually the quickest one by lap 30.

Larson’s case is the finishes. His 5.8 average finish at Kansas since 2022 is the best of anyone entered, with Hamlin next at 7.1, and he has 2 wins and 8 top-10s in those 9 races. His 576 laps led over the same stretch are also the most in the field, ahead of Hamlin’s 461. He is 3 straight Kansas top-10s deep, and he arrives in the best form of his season: his last 6 finishes read 2nd, 1st, 5th, 31st, 5th and 6th, and his last 5 races average 8.8 against 17.2 over the 24 before them.

The points lead comes from the stage breaks. Of Larson’s 877 race points this season, 232 were scored in stages, and no Cup driver with 20 or more starts takes a bigger share of his points that way. Ryan Blaney is the only driver with a higher stage total, 240, and that is 23.8% of what Blaney has scored. Sunday’s sim has Larson projecting to finish 5th. His win chance is 16.3%, his 33.3 projected laps led trail only Hamlin, and 70% of his runs end inside the top-10.

The difference between the 2 is in the tires. At the start of a green-flag run at Kansas, Larson is the fastest car in the field at 31.00 seconds a lap. By lap 30 of the run he is 1.09 seconds slower. Hamlin gives up 0.82 seconds over the same 30 laps, and that smaller number makes him the fastest car on the track by the end of the run. Larson wins the first 10 laps after a restart. Hamlin wins the last 10 before the next pit stop, and Kansas since 2022 has paid the car that is still there at the end.

If you are looking at a favorite at +400, the same odds buy 2 different races. Hamlin’s is the long green-flag run, and it costs $10,500 on DraftKings with 42.0% projected ownership. Larson’s is the restart and the stage break, and it costs $11,000 with 46.1% projected ownership, the highest number in the field.

Bell, Reddick and the rest of the front

Christopher Bell has the next shortest odds at +550, and his Kansas record is a top-5 record and not a winning record. He runs 149 laps per race inside the top-5 at Kansas since 2022, the most of anyone entered, and he has 7 top-10s in those 9 races. He has never won there. The closest he came was September 2024, when he led 122 laps and finished 7th while Ross Chastain won from 20th. He projects to finish 6th. His win chance is 13.7%, and he sits 4th in the Chase on 2,189 points, 1 behind Joey Logano.

Reddick is +600 and he is the hardest driver in the field to read at Kansas. He has lost 96 positions from start to finish across his 9 Kansas starts since 2022. He started 4th or better in 5 of those 9 starts, and those 5 produced 2 wins and 3 finishes of 25th or worse. His last Kansas start was the April win, from the pole, on 10 laps led. He projects to finish 7th. His win chance is 9.0%.

Wallace is +1400, and he and Chastain are the only other drivers entered who have won at Kansas since 2022. Wallace won the September 2022 race on 58 laps led, and last September he started 7th and finished 5th. He projects to finish 9th at $9,200. The other 23XI car, the No. 35, is 10.4 spots behind the No. 45 on average finish this season, 22.9 to 12.6, the widest gap of any Cup shop.

The sleeper

Josh Berry's season started badly enough that he spent the spring racing for a job, and the spring Kansas race was part of the problem: 23rd in green-flag speed there in April. Since Indianapolis he has finished top-10 in every 2026 race except Gateway, and he has his job. His last 6 finishes are 6th, 28th, 7th, 9th, 3rd and 8th. The number that ties it to Sunday is last September: he was the 7th quickest car in green-flag speed at Kansas last fall.

The projection reads the whole season, a 22.3 average finish through 29 races and a 24.0 average across his 6 Kansas starts, and it has him projecting to finish 22nd at $7,100. We project him at 11.4% ownership. The record since Indianapolis reads 6 races, and the spring Kansas number belongs to the No. 21 before he got hot, not the one that has been finishing top-10 since Indianapolis. Nobody thinks of the Fords as quick on this size of track, and this one has run top-10 speed at Kansas before. A top-10 or a group market is where that argument pays if it is right, and it does not need him to win.

Elliott is the other Chevrolet worth the read. His 9.8 average finish across his career 21 Kansas starts is the best of anyone entered, and the only 2 men who average better there, Kevin Harvick at 9.1 and Carl Edwards at 9.5, are retired. He won last September from 4th on the grid, leading 24 laps. Fast forward to the back half of this season which has gone sideways: his last 6 finishes are 23rd, 31st, 14th, 23rd, 25th and 5th. He is +1600 and he projects to finish 8th at $9,000. We project him at 21.7% ownership, and the Chevrolets are still seemingly working out the effects of the new nose. William Byron was 8th fastest in green-flag speed at Bristol last week, showing signs of improvement despite a late spin.

The DFS read

Kansas pays the dominator like an ordinary track. In the 23 Kansas races since 2015, 15.1% of all DraftKings points went to laps led and fastest laps. The figure for every other Cup track over the same stretch is 15.7%, and at the short tracks, where a single car can run off with a race, it is 23.8%. The laps-led points are still there to be had, Hamlin projects for 37.0, Larson 33.3 and Bell 31.3, and nobody else in the field projects for more than Blaney’s 16.4. What a lineup needs more at Kansas is finishing position, and that sends the read back to Saturday’s grid.

The place-differential number belongs to Hamlin as well. From 2022 through 2025 he started 12.9 on average at Kansas and finished 7.5, a net of plus 31.8 green-flag passes per race, the best of anyone entered, with Elliott next at plus 19.4. At the other end of the salary list, Todd Gilliland at $5,200 and Noah Gragson at $5,100 both average a 19.9 and 19.6 finish across their Kansas careers, over 4 full positions better than what our projections indicate.

Sunday

The Hollywood Casino 400 goes green Sunday, Sep 27 at 3:00 pm ET on USA Network, streaming on HBO Max. Cup practice runs Saturday, Sep 26 at 10:00 am ET, with qualifying right after it.

Kansas is the 4th Chase race, and 6 remain after it. Larson leads the standings and 3 of the 6 races still to come after this weekend are mile-and-a-halves. Saturday’s qualifying will move these projections more than most weeks, and the projections page re-runs all 10,000 sims when it does.

Saturday: the Trucks

The Truck race is a 2-truck question. Kaden Honeycutt carries the best win chance in the field at 19.2%. He projects to finish 5th and DraftKings prices him at $11,500. We project him at 48.1% ownership, the heaviest number on either table. Layne Riggs also projects to finish 5th at $12,500. His win chance is 16.5%, and we project him at 38.9% ownership. Both finish top-10 in 74% of our runs. Christian Eckes projects to finish 6th at $10,500. He finishes top-10 in 68% of our runs, and his win chance is 12.1%. Behind him, Nick Sanchez projects to finish 8th at $9,500, the cheapest of the top-6 on the table.

The Race to Stop Suicide 200 goes green Saturday, Sep 26 at 1:00 pm ET on FS1. Truck Series practice runs Friday, Sep 25 at 5:00 pm ET, with qualifying right after it.