Winners and losers from Thursday night’s Cup race at Kansas Speedway:
WINNERS
Denny Hamlin — Scored his series-best fifth win of the season. Snapped a streak of three consecutive finishes outside the top 12 in points races, a stretch that started with him crashing while in the lead late at Indianapolis.
Brad Keselowski — Runner-up finish was his 12th top-10 in the last 14 races.
Kevin Harvick — Fourth-place finish was his sixth consecutive top-five finish, top active streak in the series.
Clint Bowyer — He finished 14th but it was enough to move him up a spot in the owners points to 12th. That’s significant. The top 12 in owner points draw for starting positions 1-12. Bowyer will have a chance to start on the pole next week at New Hampshire. Had he remained 13th in owner points, he would have started between 13th-24th.
Quin Houff — Finished 24th a few days after his crash at Texas raised questions about his ability. “Man, it felt good to just get back on track,” Houff said in a video message on social media.
LOSERS
JTG Daugherty Racing — Team finished last for the fourth consecutive race. Ryan Preece finished last in the previous three races. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished last on Thursday after a cockpit fire ended his race.
Matt DiBenedetto — While Clint Bowyer was happy with climbing into 12th in the owner points, Matt DiBenedetto was left with the frustration of falling to 13th after he was hit and crashed. Now, DiBenedetto can start only between 13th-24th next week at New Hampshire. By falling out of the top 12 in car owner points, he no longer is are eligible for positions 1-12 in the random draw.
Jimmie Johnson — Collected in a crash and finished 32nd. Team couldn’t make enough repairs for him to reach minimum speed and they had to exit the race. Johnson falls out of a playoff spot with seven races left in the regular season. He is 18 points out of what is the last playoffs spot and has two other drivers between that spot and him.
