If there was one major takeaway from the opening race of the Round of 12 at New Hampshire, it’s that the way teams perform in the most critical portion of the season goes a long way toward whether they can win a Cup Series championship.
In a dominant performance highlighted by Ryan Blaney’s win, Team Penske reminded everyone yet again that the path to a Cup championship runs through them as they seek their fourth straight. And that reminder came through an on-track display of cohesion that was decidedly the opposite of what was displayed by another one of NASCAR’s top programs in Joe Gibbs Racing.
With Blaney and Team Penske already having moved onto the Round of 8, it’s up to the other playoff teams to respond in the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, the middle race in the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. While Ross Chastain and Trackhouse Racing enter this race as its defending winner, it is Hendrick Motorsports and Kyle Larson who present the rest of the field with its target to beat after a dominant performance in the spring where the No. 5 Chevrolet led 221 of 267 laps.
NASCAR playoffs 2025 race schedule, results: Complete list of Cup Series race dates, winners, tracks
Steven Taranto
Where to watch the NASCAR playoffs at Kansas
Date: Sun., Sept. 28 | Time: 3 p.m. ET
Location: Kansas Speedway — Kansas City, Kan.
TV: USA | Stream: Fubo (Try for free)
Storyline to watch
After a Round of 16 sweep led to talk of Joe Gibbs Racing potentially dominating the playoffs, the narrative surrounding the organization has now swung swiftly in the other direction thanks to on-track drama from a week ago in New Hampshire. After a sequence where Ty Gibbs — who took umbrage with the way teammate Christopher Bell had raced him — made life extremely difficult for both Bell and Denny Hamlin racing for a spot outside the top 10, Hamlin finally spun Gibbs out and put him in the wall, leading to public tensions over the manner in which Gibbs had raced his playoff contender teammates as well as his alleged influence as the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs.
With neither Hamlin or Gibbs saying anything of substance at the racetrack, things instead played out over their own respective media platforms: In an Instagram story, Gibbs posted a clip from Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast with a pointing emoji in apparent agreement with Harvick’s assertion that Hamlin spun Gibbs out on purpose. Hamlin, meanwhile, articulated his issues on