{"id":43102,"date":"2023-09-09T12:30:56","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T17:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=43102"},"modified":"2023-09-10T15:48:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T20:48:40","slug":"saturday-kansas-speedway-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/09\/saturday-kansas-speedway-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Kansas Speedway Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer<\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin\u2019s NASCAR Cup deals happened on their own time<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

KANSAS CITY, Kan. \u2013 Denny Hamlin\u2019s commitment to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing featured a lot more moving parts than a run-of-the-mill driver contract.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 Yahoo! Toyota, and crew walk the grid during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway on September 09, 2023 in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo by Jamie Squire\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

First, Hamlin had to renew the agreement of 23XI Racing, the team he owns with former NBA superstar Michael Jordan, with Toyota. Hamlin also had to cement the deal with JGR as a supplier for 23XI.<\/p>\n

As of NASCAR Cup Series Playoff media day in Charlotte\u2014four days before the Playoff opener at Darlington Raceway\u2014Hamlin had not signed his deal with Gibbs, but that circumstance changed after Hamlin finished 25th at the Track Too Tough to Tame.<\/p>\n

Hamlin, however, said the urgency of the Playoffs had little to do with the completion of his agreements and that the timing occurred naturally.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little bit of both,\u201d Hamlin said Saturday at Kansas Speedway. \u201cI would say more natural time than anything. Obviously, you have to prepare for all different kinds of scenarios, so you need a certain amount of time to work all of those out. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it happened naturally, more than timeline with the Playoffs, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin is fifth in the Cup Series standings, having offset his disappointing finish by winning the first two stages at Darlington.<\/p>\n

He said Saturday that the issue that caused him to make an unscheduled pit stop on Lap 274 of 367 was indeed a loose wheel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe socket (on the left rear tire) is turning, turning, turning and it never stopped,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cThe left rear is one of the most sensitive corners. If it was the left front, we probably could have gotten away with it, no problem. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the way that track works. It\u2019s the most sensitive corner on the car. When it\u2019s not all the way tight, you are going to feel it dramatically, and it would continue to just back off to that safety clip and then it would have damaged the hub so bad that we wouldn\u2019t have been able to get a tire on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael McDowell isn\u2019t ready to push the panic button<\/b><\/p>\n

The opening race in the Round of 16 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs hardly could have gone worse for Michael McDowell.<\/p>\n

After starting ninth, McDowell struggled with the handling on his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford and faded as the race progressed. He failed to score points in either of the first two stages. <\/p>\n

The coup de grace came when McDowell was collected in a five-car wreck late in the race and exited in 32nd-place, earning just five points in the opener.<\/p>\n

McDowell comes to the second Round of 16 race at Kansas Speedway 16th in the Playoff standings, 19 points behind Christopher Bell in 12th, the cutoff position for the next round. That doesn\u2019t mean, however, that McDowell is ready to take desperate measures. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, Darlington didn\u2019t go like we hoped it would go,\u201d McDowell said. \u201cOur goal was to go in there and not make any mistakes, and unfortunately we did and ended up crashing out there at the end. It\u2019s not a panic \u2018911,\u2019 must-win, have to go extreme strategy or extreme aggression, because there\u2019s still room for other teams and other drivers to have some mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we definitely have to go out there and run top-10 to top-five the next two weeks, if we don\u2019t win to put ourselves in position. It\u2019s definitely an uphill battle, but I don\u2019t feel like we\u2019re out of the game. I don\u2019t feel like we\u2019re out of the fight. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had speed all year. It\u2019s just putting it all together. We\u2019ll probably need a little bit of misfortune from some other competitors. We\u2019ve seen that in the first round before, particularly at Darlington and Kansas, so there\u2019s a lot of opportunities to not get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

After solid run at Darlington, Bubba Wallace is confident at Kansas<\/b><\/p>\n

Bubba Wallace ended last Sunday\u2019s Cook Out Southern 500 on a positive note, climbing to seventh in the finishing order with a strong run in the final stage.<\/p>\n

Though he\u2019s currently one point below the cut line for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs\u2019 Round of 12, the driver of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota is justifiably optimistic about his chances to advance in the postseason.<\/p>\n

Though Wallace failed to qualify for the Playoffs last year, he won the second event at Kansas Speedway. In this year\u2019s spring race, he finished fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cConfidence is pretty well up there for Kansas,\u201d Wallace acknowledged. \u201cWe know what we\u2019re capable of doing. We just have to really hone in. These races are super important for us. We made up a lot of ground in the first race of the Playoffs, but we\u2019ve got to continue to do so, being one point out.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a six-point spread between Joey Logano in 11th place and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in 15th, so there\u2019s ample opportunity for movement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of us that are hovering around the bubble mark right now,\u201d Wallace said, \u201cso we need to be better than them, and this is a great place to go out and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallace will face one impediment in Sunday\u2019s Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). His car failed pre-qualifying inspection twice. Hence, Wallace lost the services of car chief Zachary Marquardt, who was ejected from the track.<\/p>\n

He also lost pit selection\u2014potentially detrimental depending on which drivers are pitting in front of him and behind him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service Denny Hamlin\u2019s NASCAR Cup deals happened on their own time KANSAS CITY, Kan. \u2013 Denny Hamlin\u2019s commitment to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing featured a lot more moving parts than a run-of-the-mill driver contract. First, Hamlin had to renew the agreement of 23XI Racing, the team he owns with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":43080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[41,213,16],"class_list":["post-43102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-kansas-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/GettyImages-1670240310-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1708","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-bdc","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43104,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43102\/revisions\/43104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}