Championship 4 berths are wide open in Xfinity Series

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With only two races to go to seat the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship 4 Round field, Kansas Lottery 300 will play a big part on Saturday (3pm ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Kansas Speedway in determining who moves on. And it was an unpredictable and difficult place for the Playoff drivers.

From 2016-2020, at least five of the eight Playoff drivers had major problems in a race in Kansas. Last year Austin Cindric and Noah Gragson collided during an early restart and the championship favorites finished 28th and 36th respectively.

Three of the previous four Playoff races this year have been won by non-Playoff drivers, including John Hunter Nemechek at Texas Motor Speedway last week. The result is a tight and unpredictable Playoff standings – still led by regular season champion AJ Allmendinger; but by just four points more than reigning series champion Austin Cindric.

Haley, who is the No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet also has a perfect four top-10 finishes in four Playoff races this year for an average finish of 6.5. He has also never finished outside the top-10 in Kansas in three starts. His best work is fourth in last year’s Playoff series.

Allgaier (4.5) and Cindric (4.75) are the only other drivers with Playoff averages below 10. Allgaier – a winner of two races this season – has eight top-10 finishes in 11 Kansas starts. His best work is fifth place – three different times. He has three top five finishes in the four Playoff races, including a runner-up show in Las Vegas, but has not led a lap in the past two races.

Cindric, who joins Allmendinger with a total of five wins in the series, has struggled in Kansas. The driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, has only one finish better than 25th in four Kansas starts. On the plus side, he was second in the 2020 spring race, leading 131 out of 175 laps. He has three top-five finishes in the 2021 Playoffs, including a runner-up in the Charlotte Roval. His last win, however, was August 14 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.

This will be Allmendinger’s first Xfinity Series start in Kansas since a one-time entry in 2007 (he finished 25th). He also had four top-10 finishes in 18 NASCAR Cup Series races there. Although a DNF in Talladega lowered his average finish in this year’s Xfinity Series Playoffs to 13.25, he has three top-10 finishes, including a win in the Charlotte Roval.

Gragson, another winner of two races in 2021, has three top-10 finishes in four Xfinity Playoff races, including a best of third place finish in Las Vegas and last week in Texas. That’s an indication of his season at 1.5-mile tracks, where he finished in the top 10 six times in eight previous 1.5-mile races. However, he is still looking for his first top-10 in Kansas, where his best previous show is 13th in 2019; his first Xfinity Series race in Kansas. He won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series there in 2018.

The No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, who has 10 wins with four different drivers (including Nemechek in Texas last week), will be back in the lineup with Ty Gibbs in Kansas. Interestingly, 19-year-old Gibbs, a winner of three races in 2021, is the highest-ranked non-Playoff driver despite only having 16 starts in the 30 races so far.