How to watch NASCAR night race at Kansas, plus the 3 drivers with the most on the line

NASCAR is ready to return Thursday night for a Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway less than a week after the field cleared Texas. Then, the sport gets this Sunday off before resuming the playoff countdown at New Hampshire the following week.

William Byron will likely continue his iRacing practice under quarantine during the break, while Erik Jones said he plans to attend his best friend’s wedding in Michigan, where he will be the best man for a ceremony that’s “a little bit different” than what they were planning thanks to the pandemic.

“It’s definitely nice to have this coming up,” Jones said. “We’ve been working really hard between the doubleheader races, and the Sunday and Wednesday races. It’s really been busy for everybody.”

Jones and Byron, as well as other drivers on the points bubble, will need to make the most of Kansas before relaxing, however, with only eight regular-season races remaining on the schedule. There are just six playoff slots up for grabs after Austin Dillon raced his way into the postseason with a win at Texas on Sunday.

Bryon is the first driver below the cutoff, in 17th, followed by Tyler Reddick, who finished in second place on Sunday and is 12 points behind Byron. Jones is 10 points behind Reddick, in the 19th slot. Any one of those drivers could win at Kansas, or win before the regular season is over.

“We’ve had a lot of things not go our way this year, but that’s life and racing,” Byron said. “And it’s all about how you respond, and hopefully we can respond in the right way.”

Jones and Byron each said the 1.5-mile tri-oval at Kansas has been a historically solid track for them, but that their teams are looking more to secure stage points, rather than race wins.

“It’s critical,” Byron said. “I feel like every team right now is chasing those points whether you’re first in the points or eighth, there are still points up for grabs all the way through.”

Jones said that while winning is the goal, his team is focused on stage points given the “wild-card races” at Daytona International Speedway. The Daytona road course, for example, is new for the series and will be followed by a race on the oval at the same track to close the regular season.

“Those are two (Daytona) races you kind of have to prepare for and try to stack some points up for so if things go wrong there, you have a cushion,” Jones said.

Jones said if his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team can “top-five it” each week over the next eight races, he feels comfortable “pointing (his) way in” for playoffs.

Byron echoed that strategy. The No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports driver will be working with a new crew chief for the race at Kansas since his current crew chief, Chad Knaus, is taking the race off to stay home for the birth of his second child.

Keith Rodden, who last served as full-time crew chief for Kasey Kahne’s No. 5 team, will work with Byron and the No. 24 team as the substitute crew chief. Byron said he thinks the transition will go smoothly, and described the track as a new challenge compared to previous tracks, such as Texas, which have radically different turns.

“I feel like Kansas is more of a banked racetrack,” Byron said. “And it’s kind of symmetrical on both sides, although it has differences, so I think that provides a different challenge.”

NASCAR also announced Tuesday that the remainder of the 2020 season will not include practice and qualifying, which is how almost all races have been run since the sport returned amid the pandemic in May.

“The current format has worked well in addressing several challenges during our return to racing,” NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said in a statement Tuesday. “Most importantly, we have seen competitive racing week-to-week.”

Miller said NASCAR will adjust the starting lineup draw procedure for the playoff races, and will announce the new process at a later date. For Kansas, as has been the methodology for most races, drivers were grouped by positions 1-12, 13-24 and 25-36, and randomly selected from those groups for the starting order. Positions 37-40 were filled out in order of owner points.

Points leader Kevin Harvick will start on the pole Thursday night, with Joey Logano in the front row. Both of those drivers have more than one race win, but that won’t change how seriously they take upcoming races and the scramble for a solid finish in all three stages.

“All the way first through 10th, there’s points up for grabs,” Byron said. “There’s really no one that’s not looking for those right now.”

HOW TO WATCH NASCAR RACE AT KANSAS

• Race: Super Start Batteries 400 presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts

• Distance: 400.5 miles, 267 laps (stages end on laps 80, 160 and 267)

• When: Thursday, 7:30 p.m.

• TV: NBCSN (broadcast starts at 7 p.m.)

• Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

• 2019 Race Winner: Denny Hamlin

NASCAR AT KANSAS STARTING LINEUP

Alexandra Andrejev

The Charlotte Observer

NASCAR and Charlotte FC beat reporter Alex Andrejev joined The Observer in January 2020 following an internship at The Washington Post. She is a two-time APSE award winner for her NASCAR beat coverage and National Motorsports Press Association award winner. She is the host of McClatchy’s podcast “Payback” about women’s soccer. Support my work with a digital subscription