After Sunday’s running of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series STP 400, Kansas Speedway in Kansas City is slated to undergo quite the extreme makeover before the series comes back for its second stop of the season in October.
The 1.5-mile oval built in 2001, which at the moment features 15 degrees of banking in the turns, will undergo a massive renovation project that includes repaving of the existing track surface, reconfiguration of the oval, and the addition of a new infield road course. The new configuration will change to a new track geometry that features up to 20 degrees of variable banking in the turns. The current banking throughout the turns does not vary from its constant 15 degrees.
Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), might welcome the drastic change to the track surface as much as anyone. With an average finish of just 21.1 in his previous nine visits to Kansas in a Sprint Cup car, which includes just one top-10 finish, Busch knows there is nowhere to go but up.
But as is the case at most racetracks on the Nationwide Series schedule, Busch has tasted success at Kansas in NASCAR’s second tier of competition, scoring a victory (2007), a runner-up finish (2009) and a pair of third-place runs (2006, 2010). The best he has to show for his nine visits on the Sprint Cup side, however, is a seventh-place finish in 2006.
For the first decade of its existence, Kansas had been just a single stop each fall for the Sprint Cup Series competitors. Beginning in 2004 – coincidentally when Busch first joined NASCAR’s top series full-time – it took on the added importance of being one of the 10 events in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship. The M&M’s team hopes to keep moving up in the Sprint Cup standings with a breakout finish at Kansas after moving up two spots to 14th following last weekend’s race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
While the Las Vegas native would love to finally taste success at 1.5-mile oval just a stone’s throw west of the Missouri-Kansas state line, he also knows the track reconfiguration in the fall will be a chance to wipe the slate clean at a place he’s struggled over the years.
So, as Busch heads to the Heartland of America this weekend, he knows an extreme makeover begins after the race with a significant repave that’ll hopefully help the talented 26-year-old bolster his stats there. But, first things first, he’ll work hard one last time on bringing home that long-awaited strong finish at Kansas.
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