From the initial green flag to the drop of the checkered, Sunday afternoon’s (Sept. 27) Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway turned into the Kyle Larson show. It was a display of dominance unprecedented in the 2026 season, as we will see in this week’s edition of Stat Sheet.
235 – Laps Led by Kyle Larson
In total, Larson paced the field for 235 of the 267 laps in The Heartland. In terms of the percentage of laps led, Larson’s win was the most dominant performance of the season, leading 88.01% of the race.
For further context as to just how one-sided Sunday’s race was, no other race winner in 2026 has led more than 80% of the laps in the race. There have only been two other occasions this season when the winner was out front for more than 70% of the laps: Shane van Gisbergen‘s win at Watkins Glen International and Joey Logano in his victory at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
On the other side of the spectrum, Tyler Reddick holds the title of the smallest percentage of laps led by a 2026 race winner. Driver No. 45 led just one lap of the Daytona 500, but it was the most important one.
76 – Points Scored by Kyle Larson
As part of the reintroduction of The Chase for 2026, the NASCAR Cup Series points system underwent slight modifications over the offseason. The biggest adjustment was that a race win would now reward 55 points to the victorious driver compared to 40 in previous years. This meant that a clean sweep of the stage wins, the race win and the Xfinity Fastest Lap would now net a driver 76 points.
That maximum points day proved to be elusive … until Sunday. Larson won stages one and two, won the race and turned in a lap time of 30.08 seconds to earn the fastest lap bonus point. The 76-point haul for Larson was a whopping 24 points more than runner-up Austin Cindric.
While Larson earned the first maximum points day at the Cup level this season, that feat has been achieved five times in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series this year, twice by Layne Riggs and once each by Kyle Busch, Corey Heim and Kaden Honeycutt.
33rd – Carson Hocevar’s Finishing Position
Larson’s thorough dominance of the field was the cherry on top of a clean sweep of the top 11 by Chase drivers, going all the way back to Ryan Preece in 11th.
However, for a few Chase drivers, it was a day to forget in The Sunflower State. In particular, Carson Hocevar, coming off an eventful third-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway, was the lowest-finishing Chase driver back in 33rd. On a lap-122 restart, Hocever went up the track following slight contact with Brad Keselowski, getting into fellow Chasers Ty Gibbs and Bubba Wallace before spinning down the racing surface. With no more natural cautions and damage sustained from the incident, there was no chance for Hocevar to gain ground.
With the poor result, Hocever plummeted three spots from eighth to 11th in the standings. He lost 65 points in the championship battle as well, going from 85 points back to now 150 behind Larson, likely ending any title hopes for the No. 77 team.
But rest assured that Hocevar will continue to be a story the rest of the season, as he has been all of 2026.
20.75 – Average Finish for Chris Buescher in the First Four Races of The Chase
Moving on the Ford camp, Chris Buescher, who is known for his solid consistency, has instead been consistently off the mark so far in The Chase. The driver of the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford has an average finish of 20.75 through the first four Chase races, the worst among the 16 eligible Chase drivers in that span.
Furthermore, Buescher is one of just two Chase drivers without a top 10 in the past four races, alongside Daniel Suarez. Buescher, who entered The Chase as a longshot in the 10th seed, now sits 15th in the standings, just one point clear of 16th-place Suarez with championship hopes dashed. Better luck in 2027 to the No. 17 team.
0 – Final Points Margin in the ARCA Menards Series Championship
While the bulk of the attention has been on the Cup Series Chase, the ARCA Menards wrapped up its 2026 campaign Friday night (Sept. 25) with its answer to Tony Stewart versus Carl Edwards in 2011.
Jake Bollman entered the Menards 150 at Kansas with a 16-point edge over Nitro Motorsports teammate Thomas Annunziata. That all changed on lap 42 when Bollman could not avoid a spinning car in front of him and sustained heavy damage. A second car hit him on the high side to finish the job. Bollman wound up 42 laps down in 21st.
That result, coupled with Annunziata’s fourth-place result, left the two drivers tied at 947 points apiece after 20 races. Just like Stewart and Edwards in 2011, the tiebreaker came down to race wins. For as well as Bollman ran all season, he failed to win a race. However, Annunziata collected one checkered flag at Lime Rock Park that turned out to be the difference in clinching the 2026 ARCA Menards championship.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 and is currently an editor and a weekly writer of Stat Sheet. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
A name and email address are required to post a comment. The email address is not publicly visible or shared. Please keep in mind that comments are moderated according to our comment policy.
Comments are listed in order from oldest to newest. Leave a comment