Amid Kyle Larson’s domination during Sunday’s (Sept. 27) Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, there were a couple of under-the-radar storylines.
The racing product, normally strong 1.5-mile tracks and Kansas, was lacking throughout the event.
But beyond that?
There have been consistent murmurs surrounding the attendance of the NASCAR Cup Series race, with several fans making note that the buy in is just not there on this second date.
So now what? Several tracks have two dates, but is it time for Kansas to be a name no longer among them? Stephen Stumpf and Christopher Hansen ponder that on this week’s 2-Headed Monster.
It’s Time to Downsize
Kansas is a track that suffers from the faults of raised expectations. The racing at Kansas in the first few years of Next Gen car was so great, perhaps the best seen all season, that anything short of an absolute barnburner nowadays is seen as an absolute disappointment.
The racing at Kansas hasn’t necessarily been bad since 2025, but it’s clear that the track is beginning to lose the prestige it had at the start of the Next Gen era. The last four Kansas races have been Larson ass kicking part one (spring 2025), another classic (fall 2025), a cut-and-dry race with three cautions (spring 2026) and Larson ass kicking part two (fall 2026).
The fall 2025 race received a 90.3% rating on Jeff Gluck’s good race poll, which shows that we’re only a year removed from a Kansas race that met those expectations. The other three, however, scored less than 60%. The track has missed more than it has hit the last two seasons, and even with high expectations, the dominant teams have figured out Kansas down to the science, and the racing has taken a step back as a result. A switch to 750 horsepower for 2027 might be needed to bring that spark back to 1.5-mile tracks that we first saw in 2022.
But the real reason why Kansas should lose a date has nothing to do with the racing quality and everything to do with attendance. For a track that seats 48,000 people, the attendance hasn’t been good for quite a while, to say the least. There are now years of evidence pointing to the fact that Kansas doesn’t have enough local interest to fill the stands twice a year.
As of Sept. 3, the Cup Series has seen 11 sellouts in 2026. The bulk of these sellouts have come at tracks that are down to one date. Tracks like Pocono Raceway and Michigan International Speedway struggled with attendance woes when they had two dates on the schedule, but they have since seen sellouts and their largest turnouts in years now that both tracks are down to one. Sellouts look appealing to both audiences and sponsors alike, and they indicate signs of a healthy sport and one that is one the rise. If Kansas was down to one date a year, it would absolutely pack a sellout crowd.
When Kansas was producing the best racing on the schedule every time NASCAR visited, it was easy to overlook its attendance struggles. But now that the racing has gone from incredible to just good, having two Cup dates doesn’t make as much sense when it’s clear that Kansas would be better off supporting one. -Stephen Stumpf
Kansas Still Produces Compelling Racing with the Next Gen Car
There was a time where the 1.5-mile intermediate tracks were dreaded by fans. Remember Kansas 2020 when Kevin Harvick mounted a charge against Joey Logano but couldn’t find a way past?
Since the Next Gen car burst onto the scene, the mile-and-a-half intermediate tracks have constantly provided some of the most spectacular moments in recent NASCAR history, especially at Kansas.
In the spring 2023 race, there was the epic late race duel between Larson and Denny Hamlin, ending with Hamlin and Larson making contact on the backstretch, sealing the win for Hamlin. Of course, Kansas is home of the closest finish in NASCAR history, when Larson edged Chris Buescher at the start/finish line by 0.001 seconds.
While this most recent race at Kansas didn’t have a photo finish or a late race restart setting up an exciting finish, the track still produces some of the most exciting racing of the season. Since the addition of the progressive banking following the track’s repave and reconfiguration ahead of the fall 2012 race, restarts have fans and drivers holding their collective breath with three and sometimes four-wide action a lap or two after the resumption of racing.
Additionally, drivers love coming to Kansas because the track gives the drivers so many options in terms of where to run. Whether it’s running right along the white line on the inside groove to running inches from the outside SAFER barrier, drivers have the option to search around the racetrack wherever there’s room to race.
Sunday’s race was relatively tame with only five caution flags over the race’s 267 laps with only one multi-car crash on a lap 123 restart as the field approached turn 1. With such a calm race in terms of low attrition, this provided fans with more green-flag racing throughout the race. While some fans were hoping to see a late-race restart, we still got to see a fierce battle for the win between Larson and Chase Briscoe over the final 30 laps.
As the field became more spread out over the course of the run, there was so much going on that it was hard to not be locked in on one particular battle. In particular, the battle for third between Briscoe, Hamlin, Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell was fierce in the closing laps.
Regardless of whether or not Sunday’s race was a good one or not with Larson’s dominating performance, one thing is for certain about Kansas: the track is still one of the most entertaining tracks on the NASCAR schedule and will continue to be in the years to come, in turn keeping its two dates. – Christopher Hansen
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
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