In the closest finish in NASCAR history, Kyle Larson edged Chris Buescher by one one-thousandth of a second to win the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway, his second win of the 2024 season and the 25th of his Cup Series career.
Before the overtime finish, a wide variety of pit strategy came into play to move drivers and teams up and down the running order. Here is how the crew chiefs and pit crews set the stage for an instant classic in Kansas.
Series of Cautions Shakes up Strategy Early in Stage 3
It was a clean race through the first two stages, with only two cautions for the stage breaks at laps 80 and 165.
But as stage three began and the pay window drew close, drivers got more aggressive on restarts, and that led to four caution flags in the space of just 21 laps from lap 177 to lap 198. With each new caution, the field closed in on an opportunity to make it to the end on one tank of fuel. As a result, most teams split into one of two groups in hopes of gaining track position and hitting the strategy just right.
A small handful of lead-lap cars pitted for four tires and fuel on lap 194 during the fifth caution of the evening. This group was led by Buescher and Denny Hamlin, a duo of drivers who had faced their fair share of adversity on pit road in the early laps. Buescher and the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford team got penalized for the crew being over the wall too soon during their stop following stage two. Meanwhile, Hamlin lost several spots on his two previous yellow flag stops trying to get around Austin Hill, who was pitting in the stall in front of Hamlin from the tail of the lead lap.
Seven laps later, following Joey Logano’s spin to bring out the sixth caution, the leaders, including Kyle Busch and Larson, came down pit road for service. The vast majority of teams took four tires and fuel, but the No. 8 team affixed two right-side tires to Busch’s Chevrolet in an attempt to retain some track position.
What followed was a long green flag run that put Hamlin and Buescher back out front and sent teams up and down pit road into fuel mileage mode. Assuming the race stayed green until the scheduled distance, the lap 194 group led by Hamlin and Buescher would have had to go 73 laps on a tank of fuel, well beyond the projected fuel window of 62-66 laps. But one last plot twist ended the fuel conservation.
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