TC Daily Pit Stop: Gray Takes Strategy Win In O'Reilly Race at Kansas; Kvapil Goes For A Tumble; Reddick On Cup Pole; Kyle Busch Miffed At Denny Hamlin
TC Daily Pit Stop: Sunday, April 19, 2026
Wow, what a busy day and evening at Kansas Speedway, huh? On Saturday, we saw thrills, spills, a strategy-fueled win, and two current teammates and two former teammates at odds with each other.
Let’s break it all down.
Taylor Gray Strategizes Way To Kansas Win Over Sheldon Creed
He didn’t have the dominant car throughout Saturday night’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, but when the chips were on the table, Taylor Gray’s crew chief, Jason Ratcliff, called a race-winning strategy on the final pit stop of the race when he chose to pit Gray a few laps earlier than Sheldon Creed and Brandon Jones, the two dominant drivers in the race.
A couple of laps of faster lap times on fresher tires allowed Gray to get the lead when the pit stops cycled out, and he had built a massive lead. The lead was just simply a little too large for Creed to completely track him down.
Gray would hang on to win the race by 0.718 seconds over Creed, while Justin Allgaier, the series point leader, would finish third. Jones would be forced to rally to an eighth-place finish after suffering an uncontrolled tire penalty on his final pit stop, which ended his bid to win the race.
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OFFICIAL RACE RESULTS
UPDATED CHASE GRID
Carson Kvapil Walks Away From Wild Flip On Lap 2 At Kansas
Gray may have won the race on Saturday night, but the big story coming out of the race was a frightening accident on the backstretch on Lap 2 of the race. Coming off Turn 2, Carson Kvapil, the polesitter, got a shot from behind from William Byron, which sent him veering into the outside wall.
Kvapil would collect Parker Retzlaff, and would get airborne. What resulted was a wild tumble down the length of the backstretch.
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Reddick Continues Dominance Of Cup Series With Kansas Pole
Tyler Reddick can seemingly do no wrong, currently, as he continued his incredible start to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season by capturing the pole position for the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway on Saturday afternoon.
This is his third pole of the season, and he already has four wins on the stat sheet. The performance in qualifying has Reddick feeling ultra-confident going into Sunday’s race.
“Just proud of everyone’s effort at 23XI,” Reddick stated. “We’ve been solid. Obviously, we had that stretch where we were really tough to beat here. We’ve worked hard to improve that. And to have a Saturday go like this, smooth, just great handling out of our Camrys is just what we want to see.”
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Full Official Starting Lineup
Kyle Busch Miffed At Denny Hamlin’s Podcast Comments
Denny Hamlin gave his opinion of what is going on with Kyle Busch and the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team on his Actions Detrimental Podcast this week, and let’s just say that Busch didn’t take the analysis well.
When asked about Hamlin’s assessment of the situation in a media bullpen session at Kansas Speedway on Saturday, Busch fired back, “If Denny wants to switch cars, I’ll switch cars with him any day of the week, anytime. I would love for him to show me that he can carry it better than I can.”
When asked if he pays attention to what people say about him on social media, Busch admitted that he has seen things on there in the past, but that most of the time, people are incorrect in what they say. And he feels Hamlin is no different.
“Um, I have consumed some of it over time, and I’ve consumed that 80% of it, people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. And in this instance, I don’t feel like Denny Hamlin even knows what the hell he’s talking about,” Busch lamented. “So, he can bash me all he wants, and I can certainly make his life hell.”
Will Busch find a way to make Hamlin’s life a living hell on Sunday at Kansas Speedway?