2015 Hollywood Casino 400: Joey Logano Wins at Kansas After a Late Clash

The 2015 Hollywood Casino 400 was run on October 18, 2015 on the 1.5-mile tri-oval in Kansas City, Kansas. It ran to 269 laps after a green-white-checker finish, and Joey Logano won it. The result came after a tense late battle with Matt Kenseth and left Logano with a 13-point lead over Denny Hamlin in the Chase.

What happened in the 2015 Hollywood Casino 400?

Logano won his fifth race of the season and his thirteenth career victory. The race produced 21 lead changes among nine different drivers and seven caution periods covering 39 laps. Matt Kenseth led a race-high 153 laps before the final clash changed the outcome.

The race had two distinct halves. A run of cautions came early, followed by long green-flag stints, and then a late sequence of restarts and pit stops decided the result. Keselowski, who had taken the pole, led 28 laps before he finished ninth.

A green-white-checker finish at Kansas that ended with Logano driving off to win after a late clash with Kenseth.

Where did the standings stand before the race?

Logano started the weekend six points clear of Kevin Harvick, with Martin Truex Jr. seven points back and Denny Hamlin eight behind. Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards shared fifth, nine points off the lead. The margins were tight enough that one race could change the order.

Jeff Gordon sat 11 points back, Brad Keselowski 13 back and Ryan Newman 19 back. Kyle Busch was 23 points behind, Dale Earnhardt Jr. 32 back and Matt Kenseth 45 points off the lead. Kenseth needed a win to have any chance of advancing in the Chase.

Entry list and driver changes

Entries were published on Monday, October 12, with a 10:00 a.m. Eastern timestamp. Forty-four cars were entered, all of which had raced the previous week at Charlotte.

Will Kimmel was due to make his second career start, driving the No. 32 Ford for Go FAS Racing. Brian Scott went back to the wheel of the No. 33 Chevrolet for Hillman-Circle Sport, which gave the field a few new faces.

How did qualifying and practice look?

Brad Keselowski won the pole at 27.621 seconds, at a pace of 195.503 mph, or 314.632 km/h. He had also been the fastest driver in the first and second practice sessions, at 27.785 seconds and 28.427 seconds.

Jimmie Johnson was fastest in the final practice session at 28.574 seconds. Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified 14th and said his car had been tight through the middle of the third and fourth turns all day.

Keselowski said afterwards that he was still shaking from the qualifying run, because the car was right on the edge of being wide open. Casey Mears hit the wall in qualifying and went to a backup car, so he had to start the race from the rear of the grid.

How did the race open?

Keselowski led the field to the green at 2:34 p.m. under clear blue skies and pulled away for the first five laps. Harvick then reported a vibration after 15 laps, and he said afterwards that he thought the car was going to blow up. He passed Keselowski for the lead on lap 29.

The first caution came on lap 30 when J. J. Yeley's tire blew and he hit the wall. Crew chief Rodney Childers traced the vibration to a loose wheel weight on the right-rear, and the pit stop that followed sorted it out.

Logano passed Harvick on the outside on lap 51. A second caution came on lap 64 for Tony Stewart's spin, and Edwards took the lead on pit road after putting on right-side tires only.

Who led the race and for how long?

Kenseth led the most laps, 153 in total, and Logano was his most persistent challenger at the front. The two swapped the lead repeatedly on pit road and during the late restarts, which made the final stint a close contest.

Kenseth passed his teammate on the outside for the lead on lap 73. Kyle Larson's spin on lap 109 brought the third caution, and a blown tire on Austin Dillon's car brought the fourth on lap 155.

Earnhardt pitted unexpectedly on lap 165 with a loose wheel, and the fifth caution came on lap 170 when Clint Bowyer slammed the wall head-on after overcorrecting. The race restarted with the leaders still bunched together.

Logano drove underneath Kenseth on the backstretch with 88 laps to go, but Kenseth took the lead back. Kenseth won the drag race through the tri-oval with 72 laps to go.

How did the closing stage unfold?

Truex began the last round of pit stops with 54 laps left, and Kenseth gave up the lead with 53 laps to go. Harvick received a stop-and-go penalty after a fuel can slid out of his pit box, and Truex took a drive-through for an uncontrolled tire.

Blaney, Edwards and Menard then took turns at the front as the pit cycle continued. The sixth caution came with 24 laps to go when Justin Allgaier got loose and hit the wall, and Johnson took the lead from there.

Green flag racing resumed with 20 laps left, and Kenseth, on old tires, passed Johnson with ease. Logano pressed hard behind him, and Kenseth blocked him going into Turn Three with six laps to go.

With five laps to go Logano turned Kenseth, and the seventh caution followed. Kenseth said it was difficult to drive a car with its rear tires off the ground, and that Logano had lifted them. The green-white-checker restart came with two laps to go, and Logano drove off to win.

How did drivers and media react?

Logano called it a fun race and good hard racing, saying he had been fenced twice down the straightaways and had raced back. Kenseth said Logano had lifted his tires off the ground and wrecked him, and he made clear that he had no interest in talking to Logano about it.

Dave Moody of the Motor Racing Network called it a case of two drivers racing aggressively with no excuses, while Larry McReynolds said he saw nothing wrong with the final incident. Darrell Waltrip argued that Logano had a fast car and could have played it safe, but chose to race.

Nate Ryan said blocking comes with consequences, and Ricky Craven said the incident was not quintessential NASCAR. Brian France had called it quintessential NASCAR, and the writers at ESPN were split on the issue. Bob Pockrass said Logano did not clearly have the position and had not made a mistake, although the move was not clean.

What did the race mean for the points?

When he left Kansas, Logano was 13 points clear of Hamlin, and Ford still trailed Chevrolet by 47 points in the manufacturers' standings. The gap at the top was small enough to matter in the next round. He also collected the NASCAR Sprint Cup Leader Bonus of $10,000 for the win.

Ryan Blaney finished seventh, and Jeff Gordon came home 10th in his 20th and final Kansas start. Kenseth finished 14th after the collision, and his 134.1 driver rating reflected the strong run he had made before the final laps.

How did the race look on television and radio?

NBC Sports carried the race on NBC, with Rick Allen, Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte in the booth. Pit road duties on the TV side went to a separate reporting team, and the pit reporters covered the stops throughout the race.

The Motor Racing Network carried the race on radio, and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio simulcast it. Dave Moody called from a billboard outside Turn Two, while Mike Bagley called from a billboard outside Turn Three.

How did the ESPN writers split on the incident?

Several writers were asked whether the Logano move was quintessential NASCAR, and their answers differed. Ricky Craven said he was not of the opinion that one driver spinning another for the win could be called quintessential NASCAR, and he suggested it was more a sign of the Chase.

Ryan McGhee was not sure he would go that far, though he was relaxed about the move. He argued that people were swayed more by the names involved than by what had actually happened, and that the reaction would have been different if the drivers had been other popular names.

John Oreovicz answered with a simple yes, pointing to historic moments in the sport that involved contact and controversy. Bob Pockrass disagreed, and he named the Craven and Kurt Busch battle at Darlington as the kind of racing he considered quintessential.

Marty Smith said sure, adding that Logano had technically not walled Kenseth but had put a bumper to him. He said that if Kenseth had won, Logano would have had to deal with him for the rest of the Chase, and that the move was fine as long as Logano accepted the consequences.

What did the incident mean for the Chase?

Logano had already advanced to the next round after winning at Charlotte two weeks earlier. Kenseth, by contrast, needed to win at Kansas to keep his own hopes alive, which made the final laps a matter of survival for him.

Darrell Waltrip said Logano had a fast car and a job to do for his backers and crew. He argued that backing off and letting Kenseth win would have meant meeting Kenseth and his quick Toyota in the next round, so the aggressive move was the smart play.

Jerry Jordan of Frontstretch.com read the move as a sign that Logano was afraid of what the Toyota driver could do, and that he wanted to prevent a head-to-head battle in the season finale at Homestead.

Race facts at a glance