- Tyler Reddick secures his fourth pole of the season at Kansas and eyes a fifth win.
- Reddick’s boss and Larson stand as the top threats beyond the No. 45 driver.
- Larson and Briscoe are among those who have underperformed this season.
NASCAR is ready to head to its ninth race of the season at Kansas Speedway, and while the field is lining up for another round, Tyler Reddick has arrived with his foot on the gas, chasing a fifth win. The 23XI Racing driver, backed by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, has also given sponsors reason to take notice.
Just two days after locking in a deal with Rockstar Energy on Thursday, a brand that had been out of NASCAR for over a decade since its stint with Dylan Kwasniewski, Reddick has added fuel to the fire, drawing more interest toward himself and his team.
Reddick will once again start from the front of the pack, but this time at Kansas
The No. 45 driver will once again lead the field to green, trying to bag his fifth win; a fourth from the pole would fit like a glove. He opened the season by taking the Daytona 500 with a last-lap move, then went on a tear by winning the first three races, something no driver in Cup history had managed before. He added a fourth win a couple of weeks later and has held the points lead through the first two months.
Now, he has added another achievement, claiming his fourth pole after EchoPark Speedway and Circuit of The Americas, where he turned those starts into wins, and Darlington, where he again found victory lane. At Kansas, he clocked a lap of 29.142 seconds at 185.300 mph to secure his third Busch Light Pole Award of the season, his second at the track, and the 14th of his career.
Reddick edged his own team owner, Denny Hamlin, who posted 185.179 mph, by 0.019 seconds. Toyota, meanwhile, has had a grip on Kansas, with the pole marking the fifth in the last six races at the venue for the manufacturer.
Reddick also set the pace in practice, posting 182.685 mph in the session where Toyota swept the top five. His 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace followed at 182.033 mph, Hamlin slotted third at 181.421, Chase Briscoe ran fourth at 180.959, and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five at 180.349. Chris Buescher led Ford in sixth, Daniel Suárez paced Chevrolet in seventh, Christopher Bell topped Group 1 drivers in eighth, while Chase Elliott and Carson Hocevar completed the top ten.
A win on Sunday would place Reddick in a rare group. He would become the fourth driver in Cup Series history, and the first since Dale Earnhardt in 1987, to win five of the first nine races in a season. He enters the weekend atop the standings with a 62-point lead over Ryan Blaney.
Ty Gibbs, fresh off a win at Bristol, and defending series champion Kyle Larson, the two-time defending winner of the spring race at Kansas, posted identical qualifying times of 29.192 seconds at 184.982 mph and will start from third and fourth. Chase Briscoe will start fifth at 184.938 mph, as Toyota locked down four of the top five spots. Carson Hocevar will line up sixth, followed by Chris Buescher, Daniel Suárez, Blaney, and Bubba Wallace.
| Position | Driver | Lap Time (Seconds) |
| 1 | Tyler Reddick | 29.142 |
| 2 | Denny Hamlin | 29.161 |
| 3 | Ty Gibbs | 29.192 |
| 4 | Kyle Larson | 29.192 |
| 5 | Chase Briscoe | 29.199 |
| 6 | Carson Hocevar | 29.212 |
| 7 | Chris Buescher | 29.227 |
| 8 | Daniel Suarez | 29.230 |
| 9 | Ryan Blaney | 29.231 |
| 10 | Bubba Wallace | 29.280 |
| 11 | Christopher Bell | 29.325 |
| 12 | Ryan Preece | 29.367 |
| 13 | Chase Elliott | 29.403 |
| 14 | William Byron | 29.504 |
| 15 | Joey Logano | 29.507 |
| 16 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 29.532 |
| 17 | Shane van Gisbergen | 29.537 |
| 18 | Michael McDowell | 29.541 |
| 19 | Erik Jones | 29.561 |
| 20 | Austin Dillon | 29.569 |
| 21 | Brad Keselowski | 29.577 |
| 22 | Riley Herbst | 29.583 |
| 23 | Kyle Busch | 29.653 |
| 24 | Corey Heim | 29.664 |
| 25 | Zane Smith | 29.670 |
| 26 | Todd Gilliland | 29.723 |
| 27 | A.J. Allmendinger | 29.726 |
| 28 | Noah Gragson | 29.739 |
| 29 | Cole Custer | 29.739 |
| 30 | Josh Berry | 29.768 |
| 31 | Ross Chastain | 29.781 |
| 32 | John H. Nemechek | 29.831 |
| 33 | Alex Bowman | 29.849 |
| 34 | Austin Cindric | 30.014 |
| 35 | Cody Ware | 30.199 |
| 36 | Connor Zilisch | 30.246 |
| 37 | Ty Dillon | 31.364 |
Which drivers will have the best chance to win the Kansas race?
As for who can take the checkered flag, Kansas has not been a happy hunting ground for Reddick despite his current run. In 13 starts, he has one win, which also stands as his only top-five finish at the track, coming in 2023 from a fifth-place start.
In 2022, he started from pole but ended up 35th after an accident. Still, a top-10 finish in the September race last season after starting 12th, combined with his current form and car setup work, suggests he could turn Kansas into another notch on his belt this year.
Hamlin, starting alongside Reddick in second, cannot be counted out either. With four wins at Kansas, he stands as the winningest active driver at the track. Across 35 starts, he holds an average finish of 12.6. Last year, he started second and finished second, and he will look to go one better this time.
Ty Gibbs carries momentum into the weekend after his Bristol win, but his track record at Kansas tells a different story. With an average finish of 24.6, he faces an uphill climb despite starting near the front.
Kyle Larson, starting fourth, will be a threat to both Hamlin and Reddick. In 22 starts at Kansas, he holds an average finish of 12.1, with three wins and nine top fives. Since 2024, he has taken two wins in four starts.
In his last nine races at the track, the HMS driver has finished outside the top eight once, in September 2024, when he started 11th and finished 26th. In last year’s spring race, Larson started from the pole, led 221 laps, and drove to victory, putting himself in position to be a factor again.
Drivers who have underperformed this season so far
Kyle Larson
Kyle Larson, despite winning the title last November, has gone 32 races without a win. He has not finished second in any of the eight races this season. Yet he remains among the leaders in laps led, sitting second behind Denny Hamlin, who has led 441 laps to Larson’s 421. Larson sits sixth in the standings with 260 points, four behind teammate Chase Elliott. But for a driver of his standing, the start has left more to be desired.
Chase Briscoe
Chase Briscoe has also hit a rough patch. After joining Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 19 team last year and winning three races en route to a Championship 4 appearance, finishing third, expectations were high. The thought was that once he settled in, he would hit the ground running this season. Instead, the results have not lived up to that. Outside of a second-place finish at EchoPark, worth 43 points, he has logged three races at 36th or worse, totaling just four points across those events. He also finished outside the top ten at Darlington and Martinsville, starting 23rd and 27th in those races.
Connor Zilisch
Connor Zilisch’s move to Cup has also come under the microscope. After winning 10 races in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series last year and finishing second in the standings, his transition has been rocky. He has shown flashes, moving through the field from the back into the top five and top ten at times, but results have not followed. His best finish remains 14th at COTA, and he has finished 26th or worse in four of his last five starts.
As Denny Hamlin pointed out, the struggles may not rest on one driver. Trackhouse Racing as a whole has found itself in a bind. Ross Chastain, known for running at the front, has spent time in the middle of the pack. Shane van Gisbergen, meanwhile, has made gains on ovals and continues to deliver on road courses, drawing on his Supercars background.
For now, the numbers do not make for easy reading for Trackhouse or the No. 88 team, with Zilisch sitting 33rd in the standings.
