{"id":9055,"date":"2021-05-02T19:45:33","date_gmt":"2021-05-02T23:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=9055"},"modified":"2022-07-22T12:09:50","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T16:09:50","slug":"three-big-stories-kansas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2021\/05\/02\/three-big-stories-kansas\/","title":{"rendered":"Three big stories: Kansas"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’d make a “Wizard of Oz” reference, but y’all’ve heard them all. Plus, I can’t think of one for this piece.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s three big stories from Sunday’s Buschy McBusch Race 400 (no, you didn’t misread that) at Kansas Speedway.<\/p>\n

Three big stories: Kansas<\/h2>\n

1. Kyle Busch overcomes personal adversity to get first win of season<\/h3>\n
\"\"
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – MAY 2: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Mix Toyota, takes a bow after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Buschy McBusch Race 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 2, 2021, in Kansas City, Kansas. Photo: James Gilbert\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On top of winning Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas,\u00a0Kyle Busch<\/strong> completed the weekend sweep by overtaking\u00a0Kyle Larson<\/strong><\/a> on a late restart.<\/p>\n

Any other weekend, that’s “same-old, same old Rowdy.” Most weeks, however, don’t also include a miscarriage.<\/p>\n

His wife, Samantha Busch, posted a pregnancy update<\/a> to her YouTube channel, Friday. In which she revealed she suffered a miscarriage for the second time in four years.<\/p>\n

Of course, if you watched Kyle Busch after he exited his car to retrieve the checkered flag, you’d never guess he went through this. He performed his traditional post-race bow and gestured to the booing crowd to keep crying.<\/p>\n

If nothing else, it shows what a consummate professional he is.<\/p>\n

Three big stories: Kansas<\/h2>\n

2. The list of winners grows longer, while the playoff spots shrink<\/h3>\n
\"\"
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – MAY 2: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Light For The Farmers Ford, drives during the NASCAR Cup Series Buschy McBusch Race 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 02, 2021, in Kansas City, Kansas. Photo: Sean Gardner\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Make that 10 different winners.<\/p>\n

After 11 NASCAR Cup Series race in 2021, Busch added his name to the growing list of different winners. And much like the landing slots at London Heathrow Airport*, the number of automatic playoff spots for race winners diminishes.<\/p>\n

*Shoutout to the six avgeeks who follow me that get that.<\/p>\n

Naturally, as the season progresses, we’ll see diminishing returns on different winners. At this point, the only remaining driver I see definitely winning soon is\u00a0Denny Hamlin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I doubt we’ll get 18 or 19 different race winners, but time will tell. And if I’m\u00a0Chase Elliott<\/strong> and\u00a0Kevin Harvick<\/strong>, while I’m not necessarily hitting the panic button, I’d sweat a little more.<\/p>\n

Three big stories: Kansas<\/h2>\n

3. Safety in NASCAR matters, except for rogue tires<\/h3>\n
\"\"
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – MAY 2: Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Verizon 5G Ford, and William Byron, driver of the #24 Axalta Chevrolet, lead the field to start the NASCAR Cup Series Buschy McBusch Race 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 02, 2021, in Kansas City, Kansas. Photo: James Gilbert\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inconsistency, thy name is NASCAR.<\/p>\n

With 50 laps to go, a tire got away from\u00a0Tyler Reddick<\/strong>‘s pit box. It rolled onto the frontstretch grass and brought out a caution.<\/p>\n

Fifteen laps later.<\/p>\n

This was NASCAR’s explanation for holding the caution.<\/p>\n

“The tire was far enough away from the racing surface where we felt comfortable completing the pit stop sequence before retrieving the tire. Ultimately the tire needed to be retrieved.”<\/p>\n

Listen, NASCAR was right to throw the caution. A tire on the track is an obvious safety hazard. But how is it not enough of a hazard to throw the caution right away?\u00a0What’s more,\u00a0Chris Buescher<\/strong>, who was leading when the tire went rogue,\u00a0has a legitimate gripe, if he points out NASCAR blatantly manipulated the race. It held the caution, despite the obvious hazard, and waited for the pit cycle to conclude.<\/p>\n

I have to ask. If it wasn’t enough of a hazard to throw out the caution right away, then why not send an official to retrieve the tire, while still green?<\/p>\n

TOP IMAGE: James Gilbert\/Getty Images<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d make a “Wizard of Oz” reference, but y’all’ve heard them all. Plus, I can’t think of one for this piece. Anyway, here’s three big stories from Sunday’s Buschy McBusch Race 400 (no, you didn’t misread that) at Kansas Speedway. Three big stories: Kansas 1. Kyle Busch overcomes personal adversity to get first win of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3353,"featured_media":9056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,1664],"tags":[1486,260,261,14,1434,371,1457],"class_list":["post-9055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-nascar","category-nascar-cup-series","tag-buschy-mcbusch-race-400","tag-kansas-speedway","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-2021","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-three-big-stories"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}