Fall 2021 Kansas Race Report

Kyle Larson dominates the Fall 2021 Kansas Race Report, but the type of domination was much different than last week at Texas. As always, thanks to racing-reference.info for the stats.

Caution/Lead-O-Gram

As always, we start with the Caution/Lead-O-Gram.

Cautions

We had seven cautions (3 accidents, 1 spin, 2 stage end, and 1 weather) for a total of 33 laps of caution. 12.4% of the race ran under caution. Note that I didn’t show the brief red flag for rain near the start.

The number of cautions is pretty consistent with the last three races, at a little less than two cautions per 100 miles. The average number of cautions per 100 miles over the last five Fall Kansas Races is 1.64.

Four cars were involved in accidents and 1 in a spin. Remember that these numbers count only cars that cause cautions. Although a couple cars bounced off walls, we don’t picked them up in these stats.

Caution/Lead-O-Gram for the 2021 Fall Kansas Race Report

Lead Changes and Leading

Eight distinct drivers led laps, with six of those being quality leaders. Out of 23 lead changes, 16 qualify as earned — which means that they weren’t because someone else pitted, for example.)

Larson led the most laps, followed by Byron, Elliott and Logano.

Laps Led for the 2021 Fall Kansas Race Report

Lead Lap Finishes at the 2021 Fall Kansas Race

I try to pick out the distinguishing features so I can highlight that which is different. For the 2021 Fall Kansas Race Report, I’m featuring the lead lap finishes. Normally at Kansas, around 50% of the field finishes on the lead lap. This race, it was only 37.5%. there have been (much) lower percentages of drivers finishing on the lead lap, but the last two races were both above 50%.

A stacked vertical bar graph showing lead and other lap finishes for Fall Kansas Races

Graph of the 2021 Fall Kansas Race

I don’t really have a great graph to show this, but you gotta feel for Ryan Blaney. After starting second, and eschewing stage points to get track position, the #3 got loose and too him out. Blaney’s hit-and-miss at Kansas, but he had everything going for him this time.

This vertical bar chart shows that Ryan Blaney isn't consistently good at Kansas, but this looked positive for him up until the crash.

Running Away with the Win

Kansas has had some pretty large margins of error over the years, as shown below. But the 3.619 s lead Larson had was the largest MOV in a Fall race since 2010. Greg Biffle won that race by over seven seconds. Even including 2021, the average MOV over the last five fall races is 1.45 seconds.

This vertical bar graph shows that the 3.6 second margin of victory was greater than any MOV at fall Kansas races since 2010.

And that’s your 2021 Fall Kansas Race Report.

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