2024 Kansas I Race Report

Hello and welcome to the 2024 Kansas I Race Report. Things have been going slowly here at BuildingSpeed because of a total re-org of the data system. That meant I had to re-write a ton of programs. Expect this report to grow as more of the plots get re-written.

Caution/Lead-O-Gram

It’s back and, hopefully, clearer than before.

Cautions

The 2024 Kansas I race had:

• 3 Accidents for 42.86% of the total caution laps
• 2 Stage End cautions for 28.57% of total caution laps
• 2 Spins

We had

• 19 laps for accident-related cautions
• 14 for the stage-end cautions
• 10 for the spins.

That makes a total of 43 laps of caution or 16.04% of the race laps.

This race’s seven cautions is pretty typical for a Kansas race. Last spring’s race was high with 11. That was due in part to three tire issues. Last fall’s race had only nine total cautions.

Lead Changes

There are 27 lead changes in the 2024 Kansas I race report.

• 13 of those lead changes (48.1%) were green-flag passes.
• 5 lead changes involved drivers taking the lead on a restart
• 4 lead changes happened on pit road under yellow when someone else beat the leader out of the pits.
• 5 lead changes were inherited during pitstop cycles. This means someone else pitted and left a new leader. Four of those happened under the green, one under the yellow.
• 1 change was when Christopher Bell beat Chastain to the line; by the time the first full green-flag lap was finished, Larson had taken the lead.

Last spring, there were 16/36 lead changes that were green-flag passes, for 44.4%.

Other Miscellaneous Facts

• The race start was delayed by 3 hours and 15 minutes due to rain and track drying.
• This was the smallest margin of victory of any NASCAR race ever: 0.001 seconds. The winner was determined by a high-speed camera placed at the start/finish line.
• Kansas Speedway’s start/finish line is not straight, but it really doesn’t matter because the camera is aligned using a laser. Although Kansas Speedway could use a laser to help paint the line straight.
• Kyle Larson’s win makes him the driver with the most top-five finishes (6) and the most top-three finishes (5). Denny Hamlin and William Byron, however, have the most wins with three each.
• After 12 races, Harrison Burton, Carson Hocevar, Austin Dillion, Ryan Preece, Todd Gilliland, Austin Cindric and Corey LaJoie each have only one top-10 finish

That’s the 2024 Kansas I Race Report for now. Expect these to grow in content and aesthetics as the season wears on.