Why more unpredictability should be expected at Kansas Speedway

When you think of the most unpredictable tracks in NASCAR, Kansas Speedway is probably not the first one that comes to mind for casual fans.

Go back to last season's spring race at Kansas and it will not take long to realize how racy the track is and why it has become one of the best circuits in all of NASCAR.

In the 2024 spring race alone, Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson got around Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing's Chris Buescher on the final lap and won by 0.001 seconds in the closest finish in Cup Series history. 

That was the second last-lap pass in the last four Cup races at Kansas and third of the four to be decided in the final two laps. The 37 lead changes were the most for a 400-mile race at a 1.5-mile track in the sport's history.

The last six races there have featured six different winners. Larson is the only repeat winner in the last nine and that second win nearly did not happen.

Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell has won each of the last three poles at Kansas and failed to win either one of the races, turning in a best finish of sixth in the 2024 spring race. Not only that, the driver who has led the most laps has been unable to win the last five races, producing the longest such streak in the track's history.

Even Hendrick Motorsports, the organization with the most wins at Kansas (nine), has been unable to solve the unpredictability of Kansas. Larson has finished inside the top 10 at each 1.5-mile race this season, but was a disappointing 26th in the playoff race there last fall.

In 2025, no organization has been more consistent than the four-car HMS stable of Larson, Chase Elliott, William Byron and Alex Bowman. The 1,135 combined laps led are easily the most in the series with Larson's 596 leading the entire field.

Byron's average finish (8.91) is the best by a Hendrick driver at this point in the season since seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson in 2013, per NASCAR.com. At least one HMS car has placed inside the top five in each of the 11 races this season — the only organization to do so — and in the last 19 dating back to last season.

Byron and Larson are atop the standings while Elliott sits in fourth and Bowman 10th. Despite the consistency, the organization only has three wins to show for it. In the six races at Kansas since the Next Gen car's inception in 2022, Larson's win last spring is the only time HMS has visited victory lane in that time.

If recent history at Kansas and the 2025 season are any indication, expect more unpredictability on Sunday as the Cup Series returns to the track that produced the closest finish in history.