NXS: Kansas Lottery 300 Race Preview

The NASCAR XFINITY Series rolls into the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway for the 16^th annual Kansas Lottery 300. Kansas Speedway will serve as the 30^th race of the season and the first race in the Round of Eight. Kyle Busch, who will pilot the No. 18 NOS Energy Drink Toyota, enters the weekend as the defending race winner.

A total of 42 drivers are featured on the weekend entry list. Some of these include Austin Dillon, Cole Custer, Joey Logano, Jennifer Jo Cobb, Timmy Hill, Kyle Larson, Brandon Brown, Regan Smith, David Starr and Matt Waltz. Two drivers will go home after qualifying early Saturday morning.

Joey Logano enters the weekend with momentum after scoring the win last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Logano led only 12 of the 200 laps during the race after Kyle Larson dominated the race by leading 165 laps.

Logano, who will pilot the No. 22 Ford this weekend, will make his 13^th XFINITY Series start in 2016. He holds two victories, six top five and 11 top 10 finishes.

Erik Jones moves on into the Round of Eight as one of the favorites to advance into the round of four drivers at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Jones, who will pilot the No. 20 Toyota on Saturday, looks to turn things around as some misfortune struck the team. The Kansas Lottery 300 will mark Jone’s first XFINITY Series start at the 1.5-mile oval.

 “I haven’t been to Kansas for a race yet in the XFINITY car, but we tested there earlier this year, so I think we’ll be pretty good. I feel great going in to the weekend and the rest of the Chase. I’ve learned a lot from the first round and I think we are in a good spot to go to Kansas with our notes from the test earlier this year and have a good run. We’re big picture racing at this point. All of us on the No. 20 Reser’s team want to make it to Miami with a shot at the Championship.”

The young driver comes into Kansas with four victories, 14 top five and 17 top 10 finishes in 2016.

Brandon Jones will run double duty at Kansas Speedway as he’ll run Friday’s ARCA Racing Series race. Jones, who is one of the Chase underdogs in the series, left Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend with a 16^th place finish.

“The race went about as I expected with a lot of green flag runs,” said Jones after the race at Charlotte. “We got caught a lap down with an untimely caution, then got a pit road speeding penalty that set us back and we didn’t get the cautions we needed to get the laps back. My expectation for this Chase was to make it as far as I possibly could. I didn’t really set an expectation for where I wanted to end up. If you took away the poor finishes at Kentucky and Dover we would have been OK. We had good speed at both those tracks and should have had top-five finishes there. I hate that we did not advance, but it’s just part of the game. We’ll come back strong next year and go for it again.”

The Georgia native holds one top five and 13 top 10 finishes through 34 career XFINITY Series starts.

The Kansas Lottery 300 will air live on NBC at 3:00 p.m. ET. The Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM Channel 90 will have the live radio broadcast.