Who… should you be talking about after the race?
It was quite the weekend at Kansas Speedway for Kyle Larson and the No. 5 team. Larson won the pole for the AdventHealth 400, and that was just the beginning.
On Sunday, Larson put on the most dominant show the speedway has ever seen. Larson swept the stages and led seven times for 221 laps, shattering the track record of 197 set by Jimmie Johnson in October of 2011. He also claimed the extra point for the fastest lap, locking down maximum points on the day.
Larson’s only struggle was tire conservation on long runs, and he stumbled on the final lap as the tires started to give up grip, but even with the hiccup, Larson beat Christopher Bell to the checkers by .712 seconds.
Let’s go! Great team win and execution all day! pic.twitter.com/KsnyKFecZq
— Kyle Larson (@KyleLarsonRacin) May 11, 2025
It’s Larson’s third win of 2025 and the 32nd of his career.
On the other hand…
Denny Hamlin entered the weekend as the active wins leader at Kansas with four, and he had enough speed to be in the hunt for a fifth. Unfortunately, the clutch failed on the No. 11 Toyota, and while Hamlin was able to stay near the front for much of the day, he was at a major disadvantage on every pit stop.
The end came on a pit stop under caution for Brad Keselowski’s spin on lap 195. Hamlin over-revved the engine in an attempt to get going and couldn’t get it to re-fire, winding up behind the wall with a disappointing 36th, just one spot ahead of his career-worst Kansas finish.
Denny Hamlin's car fired back up in the garage but it quickly came to a stop again. Hamlin said he could hear stuff moving around in the transmission.
— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) May 11, 2025
"I don't have any gears. I think it blew the transaxle." https://t.co/XQIFDLWxwA pic.twitter.com/OnRpF3xehS
It’s also Hamlin’s third straight finish of 21st or lower and second straight of 36th or worse. There’s no need to panic; Hamlin is locked into the playoffs with two wins and he has plenty of speed. He just needs to make up with Lady Luck.
What… does this mean for the points standings?
For the first time in 10 weeks, there’s a new point leader as Larson’s domination of the day vaulted him past teammate William Byron, who struggled after a cut tire sent him spinning while entering pit road for an unscheduled stop. Larson entered the weekend 13 points behind Byron but leaves with a 35-point cushion.
There's issues on the No 24! @WilliamByron makes it to pit road. pic.twitter.com/Co3GTReURm
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 11, 2025
There was plenty more swapping places this weekend.
Bell’s runner-up finish boosts him three spots to third, Chase Elliott remains fourth, and Ryan Blaney jumps two places to fifth.
Tyler Reddick falls from fifth to sixth. Hamlin tumbled from third to seventh after his early exit. Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace swapped eight and 10th spots while Joey Logano holds steady in ninth.
The biggest gain of the week goes to Josh Berry, who leaps from 24th to 17th on his sixth-place run. John Hunter Nemechek continues to make gains, up four spots to take over 19th.
The biggest drop of the week goes to AJ Allmendinger, who completed just six laps Sunday before losing his engine. He falls six positions, from 19th to 25th.
Where… did he come from?
After qualifying dead last, a full two seconds off Larson’s pole-winning speed, Berry put on a clinic on cutting through the field on Sunday. Berry didn’t grab any points in the first stage after taking the green in 38th, but by the end of stage two, he was inside the top five, taking fourth place and the point to go with it.
Despite his speed, Berry’s day wasn’t easy. He was in the middle of the four-wide situation that ended with Kyle Busch sliding into the grass, but he was able to hang on then and drove to a sixth-place finish.
He’s the poster boy for what can happen when a team and driver tap into each other’s potential. Berry struggled as a Cup rookie last year, but he was driving for a lame duck team that wasn’t invested in its own future, let alone his.
Fom the back of the pack to a P6 finish. 👏👏👏 @joshberry @woodbrothers21 @kansasspeedway pic.twitter.com/ewThatKGEu
— Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing (@MQL_Racing) May 12, 2025
He joined a Wood Brothers Racing team that had a win in 2024 but little else to cheer about. Berry has already surpassed the No. 21 team’s top fives, top 10s, and laps led from last year.
Berry and his team are fully invested in each other’s success this year, and they’re showing solid potential.
When… was the moment of truth?
Sometimes a team just hits the setup perfectly for a weekend, and that’s what the No. 5 team did at Kansas. It might not make for the most compelling race for fans, but it’s an accomplishment for the winner to be sure.
However, despite the speed he had, Larson had a little help winning. Had the caution flag not flown a few times on the final run, Larson might not have been the one spraying the champagne.
If the No. 5 had a weakness, it was long green-flag runs. As the laps racked up, Larson’s right-side tires wore down, making him vulnerable. Larson managed them well on the final run, but he still faltered on the final lap, allowing Bell to cut the gap in half. Had there been more laps, Larson would have been in trouble.
Larson and Co. planned the final run just right, saving the tires to the checkers, but that’s an awfully thin line between perfection and disappointment.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
The Cup Series is heading into its All-Star break, and it’s hard to look at that event the same way after it came to light that teams were given the opportunity to basically bring anything they wanted under the skin of the Next Gen racecar and declined due to expense.
On one hand, it’s easy to understand the owners’ positions. With the high cost of building a car that’s legal for a points race, putting time and resources into altering one that they could then never use again isn’t particularly financially prudent.
On the other hand, it might have been NASCAR’s golden opportunity. If the teams hit on something that made short-track racing more compelling than it has been with this car, that could have been turned into a win for the entire sport if some of the things the teams tried could have become part of the package.
Instead, if the racing looks like it has on short tracks the last few years, the future of North Wilkesboro Speedway could end up in the spotlight just a couple of years after rising from its own ashes like a modern-day phoenix.
The All-Star Race would have been a great chance to try changes to improve the racing, but after teams turned down the opportunity to actually work on their cars like they used to, NASCAR decided not to try anything different either.
Will the teams’ decision loom large over the future of short-track racing at NASCAR’s highest level?
How… did this race stack up?
When you saw the closest finish in NASCAR history in the same race a year before, it’s going to be hard to match that level of excitement. That’s especially true when the Craftsman Truck Series delivered a fantastic battle for the win on Saturday (May 10).
Add that excitement to Larson’s domination, and it’s not going to be a Kansas race remembered fondly by fans of any driver but Larson.
There are worse things than a race where one driver has a day like Larson’s. There were no questionable cautions to set up a late restart, something which was standard procedure a decade or so ago. The race wasn’t affected by weather, and it wasn’t a crashfest.
It just … was.
And that’s a normal part of a 36-race season.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.