Tyler Reddick Rolls to Pole in Qualifying at Kansas

Reddick is finding his groove as the Cup series visits Kansas for the second time this season. The Richard Childress Racing driver put down a lap at 180.608 mph to earn his second pole of the season and the third of his career. Reddick was the final driver to hit the track for qualifying, taking the top spot away from Joey Logano.

"I think we’re in pretty good shape," Reddick proclaimed. "In practice, it took off fast. As much as you want to adjust on the car sometimes, I felt like it best to run it out and get a feel for our car as best we could. Certainly got a pretty good feel for it. It definitely likes the top two or three grooves of this race track. We had a good weekend at Darlington and we’re off to a good start again this weekend, too."

The second race of the playoffs is an opportunity for redemption for several drivers who left Darlington with a bad taste in their mouth. The standings saw quite the shakeup after just one race, where Erik Jones celebrated his second Southern 500 victory. This was the first time a non-playoff driver won the playoff opening race since the postseason began in 2004.

The top five drivers in qualifying today are all in the playoffs, as Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell, and Ross Chastain were just ahead of Bubba Wallace. Playoff drivers Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric, and William Byron were next as Chris Buescher rounded out the top ten.

Toyota has won four of the last six races at Kansas, and should be the favorite to grab the checkered flag tomorrow. In the first Kansas race this season, Toyota took five of the top six finishing positions, including the race win with Kurt Busch.

Denny Hamlin is a three-time winner at Kansas and has finished inside the top-five in the last two races here. He struggled in qualifying today though, and will start 25th tomorrow. His teammate Kyle Busch also didn’t have great speed, and starts in 20th. Kyle won here last season and finished 3rd in the Kansas race earlier this year.

Bell actually has the most top-ten finishes among the JGR drivers this season. He qualified on pole here in May and scored a top-five finish. Bell’s victory at New Hampshire in July is the only win for Toyota in the last 13 races.

Kevin Harvick finds himself at the bottom of the playoff standings after his Mustang burst into flames last weekend at Darlington. The Stewart Haas driver was more than upset with how the situation played out, bashing NASCAR’s lack of attention to the parts and safety elements of the NextGen car.

Kansas is the perfect place for Harvick to bounce back. Since 2013, he has three wins, six poles, and 11 top-five finishes. Harvick leads all active drivers in top-fives, top-tens, poles, laps, laps led, and average finishing position at Kansas. He qualified 14th today and loves racing at this track.

"From a driver’s standpoint, Kansas is a fun racetrack because of the fact that it’s worn in so well. You can race at the top of the track, which is the preferred groove as the tires wear out but it’s faster at the bottom on new tires. As a driver, having options is something that is a lot of fun. You can literally drive from the wall to the apron all the way around the racetrack."

Chase Elliott is also in need of a bounce-back performance tomorrow after crashing out of the Darlington race last weekend. The regular season champion saw his 40-point cushion evaporate in the blink of an eye, and now sits 9th in the playoff standings. He typically runs well in the race, but qualified just 22nd today.

Elliott won here in 2018 and has six top-six finishes here since then. "Kansas feels like a shorter mile-and-a-half for some reason," he said. "It just feels a little tighter than some of the other ones. Momentum is going to be tough to beat and the track is aging too. I think as the race plays out, the top will continue to be more and more dominant. It’s going to be a fight for track position and how well you can get around the top."

His teammate Larson is another driver that needs a good finish tomorrow. He avoided disaster last weekend at Darlington, when he came to pit road with more engine issues. While he was able to continue and salvaged a decent result, Larson did slip to 7th in the standings.

"I feel like every week has been pretty wild and unpredictable," Larson said. "I feel like every race this year, the majority of the field has had some sort of issue go on throughout the race. As much as I want to say Kansas will be different, I just don’t know. It could be even crazier. But I hope that we can have a smooth race, get some points, and try and put ourselves into a better position as we go to Bristol."

Logano continued his impressive late-season surge and took over the championship lead following the race at Darlington. The Penske driver was proud of the way his team battled through adversity on Sunday night, but knows they had a real shot to vault themselves even higher.

"It was a solid day but a missed opportunity is probably where I would put it," Logano said. "With so many others having trouble, you’ve just got to survive, and you get a solid finish. That’s what we were able to do last week, but we had plenty of our own issues, too. We gave up track position a couple times and then we got caught with that caution, but we just battled hard." Joey has won three races at Kansas, all of them coming in the playoffs.

The lineup is set as several championship contenders will aim to recover from blunders last weekend at Darlington. Another opportunity to advance into the Round of 12 awaits these drivers tomorrow. Coverage for the Hollywood Casino 400 begins at 3 PM ET on USA Network.