Editor's note: NBC broadcasters will offer opinions on upcoming races the remainder of the season. This week, analyst Jeff Burton discusses Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, starting about 2:15 p.m. on NBC.
What is the best approach to racing at Kansas this weekend?
Perhaps that depends on where one is in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
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Last Sunday’s delayed race at Charlotte Motor Speedway was surprisingly hard on the 12 remaining title contenders. Five had problems in the race, relegating them to the bottom of the standings. The field will narrow to eight drivers after the next two races, at Kansas and Talladega.
Now those five are in a unique position heading to Kansas for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400.
Kevin Harvick, the 2014 champion and 2015 runner-up, enters the race last among those contenders, 41 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson but only eight behind Denny Hamlin, the first driver above the cutoff. Hamlin had his own problems at Charlotte, suffering an engine failure late in the race, and himself sits 16 points behind Martin Truex Jr., who is seventh.
In 11th is Joey Logano, who hit the wall twice with tire issues last weekend, six point behind Hamlin. Austin Dillon, in ninth, and Chase Elliott, in 10th, were caught up in the same multicar crash on a restart and are each on the outside looking in, but still only three points behind Hamlin.
Now, there is a race within a race for the title.
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At least one of these five will still advance in the Chase. It all depends on what happens at Kansas – and the following week at Talladega. The very nature of Talladega, a restrictor-plate race with a propensity for multicar crashes, turns that into a race in which no Chaser wants to have his fate decided.
So what can fans expect at Kansas? A move to put oneself in position to avoid having Talladega be a must-win situation.
“I’m sure that we will see the usual suspects running in the front,” former driver and current NBC analyst Jeff Burton said. “I am really interested to see, with the people that had trouble this weekend, who can step up. I think that they all realize they are in a tough situation and we’ll keep talking about it, but the fact of the matter is with Talladega on the horizon, one of those teams that had trouble, finishing fifth on Sunday is probably not going to be enough to advance after Talladega.”
And that is where the type of race that Talladega is intrudes on the thought process for Kansas.
As Burton points out, one can be running “fifth with one to go and finish 20th.”
“So I think all five of those teams feel like they are in must-win situations and a lot of the other teams are probably afraid to make a mistake and, of course, when you’re afraid to make a mistake, what always happens? You make a mistake,” Burton said.
“So I think the one thing that I’ve come to understand about this format is the uncertainty of it. You just have to expect that you just have no idea what’s going to happen.”
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Instead, one now has a group of drivers in which each feels the pressure to win. Things might be different if only four drivers had struggled at Charlotte. Then the weekend plan could be a little more clear, the willingness to gamble a little more simple.
With five teams involved, though, things are different.
With the knowledge that Charlotte certainly didn’t end the Chase for at least one of these teams, will the approach to Kansas change?
“The fact that it’s five gives them all hope but they all just had trouble, so they all know that trouble is right around the corner,” Burton said. “ … You don’t want to leave Kansas in the (mindset of) ‘We have win at Talladega, we have to finish fifth at Talladega’. You want to leave Kansas with that win. So I think that it does, because it’s five rather than four, I think it does open the door – one of those five at least is going to move forward and they can use points by doing that. But you can’t use points by finishing 10th.”
So for these drivers, the mission is a little more difficult – and they certainly know it.
“You’re going to have to find a way to contend for the win in the next two races to move forward,” Burton said. “You’re not going to finish 11th and ninth and make it happen; you’re going to have to finish like second and third.”