LARSON LOVES MIAMI, JOINS TEAMS TESTING AT HOMESTEAD

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Kyle Larson is hopeful his fast performance in Tuesday's rain-interrupted NASCAR Sprint Cup Series test at Homestead-Miami Speedway will be a harbinger of good things to come when the series returns to the track for the Nov. 20 season finale.

The 24-year-old, who was eliminated after the opening round of this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs, would have preferred that his test session work contribute to deciding the Sprint Cupchampionship later at Homestead. But he will gladly go for the track trophy instead this year.

"Homestead is probably my favorite track for racing the trucks and XFINITY series and for Cup, it's my second favorite to Bristol," said Larson, who has a win here in the XFINITY Series.

"I always enjoy coming here and running really close to the wall. It's a real race track where I feel like driver can make up a lot. You always have to have a good car but I feel like the driver can have an impact here."

Larson's No. 42 Target Chevrolet paced the field in the morning session at the 1.5-mile track, just ahead of fellow Chevy driverChase Elliott, who sits 25 points back from the cutoff as the series heads to the Talladega eliminator this weekend. Ryan Blaney was third fastest in the opening session.

Elliott led Larson in the afternoon session, which was extended two hours because of the rainy weather, lasting till 7 p.m. Larson,Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Austin Dillon rounded out the top five on the speed charts in the afternoon session.

Many of the teams here were specifically non-specific in their goals for the two-day test, guarding their objectives and the pursuit of them.

Ford driver Brad Keselowski was less circumspect and certainly less technical in explaining his team's intent this week.

"It's always a little complicated to explain," he said smiling. "We're always working on them, always making them better and we've come up with a couple things and we try to validate them on track.

"We put them through all these engineering tests with all these fancy computer simulations telling us if it's going to work or not work. And we get pretty confident it's going to work, but like to backstop check it. We're going through a lot of things we've been doing with the proper implementation of all these gizmos to check things you're allowed to use in testing. Just validating the parts and pieces."

Veteran Carl Edwards said he just likes to get laps here in advance of the series crowning its champion and that his Joe Gibbs Racing Team welcomed the opportunity to try new things.

"We're just working on a bunch of different things," Edwards said. "This sport is evolving so quickly and all of the teams are pushing. I talked to (crew chief) Dave (Rogers) this morning and all the Chase contenders are up there and fast. We're working on a bunch of different things."

Some teams, most notably, Martin Truex Jr.'s Furniture Row Racing team opted not to use the Homestead test -- something Edwards said he understood as well.

RELATED: Truex, No. 78 team to pass on Homestead test

"One of the things that can happen is you can come test and be too confident in what you find out," Edwards said. "We're just kind of going through some things and really having fun.. …Even if we don't gain anything huge for the car, we're having a good time."

The series is set to conduct another full-day test at Homestead on Wednesday.

Cain: Don't count out Harvick,Logano,Elliott or Dillon at Kansas

RELATED: Chase Grid | Set your Fantasy lineup for Kansas With two races remaining to set the Round of 8 to contend for NASCAR's 2016 Sprint Cup title, the four most vulnerable drivers in the standings have vastly different histories at this week's venue, Kansas Speedway for the Hollywood Casino 400 (Sun., 2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). And with the unpredictable nature of Talladega Superspeedway's restrictor plate brand of racing coming up next week for the Round of 12's elimination race, the more traditional Kansas 1.5-mile venue offers a relatively calmer opportunity to climb the standings. Now. The four drivers hoping to race back inside the top eight are separated by only five points. Austin Dillon and Chase Elliott are tied, only three points behind eighth place Denny Hamlin, whose Toyota suffered a rare engine failure last week late in the Charlotte race. WATCH: Hamlin's engine blows late at Charlotte Joey Logano is six back and 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick trails Hamlin by eight points. The two veterans -- Harvick and Logano -- currently trying to race their way to a top-eight transfer position have historically fared well at Kansas. The younger competition -- Dillon and the rookie Elliott -- still don't have much of a track record to lean on. Harvick sits eight points out of the cutoff position after a 38th-place finish -- due to mechanical issues -- at Charlotte last weekend and a 37th-place result at Dover International Speedway the week before. Harvick, however, won the fall race at Kansas in 2013 and has three runner-up finishes there in the last five races. In the last six Kansas races, he has led the most laps (392) of the four drivers hoping to climb back into the top-eight in the standings. In the last three years, he has three pole positions (fall of 2013 and both 2014 races) and an average finish of 10.8 at Kansas. "The repave is definitely what changed and turned things around for us at Kansas," Harvick said. "Really, I liked the racetrack the way it was before with the asphalt really worn out and cars sliding all over. But, once the repave happened, we were able to really hit on some things and, for whatever reason, it kind of fits my driving style and we have gotten some good results out of it. "It has been a really good-performing racetrack for us and one that we look forward to going to and hopefully continue to get good results out of it because it's been so good for us in the past." Logano, who is currently ranked 11th of the 12 still-eligible Chase drivers, had five consecutive top-five finishes at Kansas until a crash this May, which resulted in a 38th-place showing. But most importantly -- and encouraging -- to Logano's Team Penske crew, he is the two-time defending winner of this week's Chase race. "Things happen," Logano said of his 36th-place showing at Charlotte. "It's part of racing, but we're not out. We're not gonna die. This team is resilient. "We've proved it before and we'll just have to go out and prove it again. We just have to have two flawless races. It's something we can make up." Dillon and Elliott, who are both three points behind the top-eight cutoff, don't have an extensive Kansas track record to examine. The 20-year old Elliott finished ninth in his only Sprint Cup race there this Spring. He also scored top-10 finishes in both XFINITY Series races he competed in at the track. He hasn't led a lap at Kansas previously in either series. However, his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has turned in impressive work out front during the Chase, with 176 laps led in four races -- more than half of his season-long total. Dillon, 26, has two top-10 finishes in six starts at Kansas, including a sixth-place effort this May. However, he also has three finishes of 20th or worse, including a 41st place showing in this race last year. "What we think of is,'What has made us faster in the past?' and 'What can we do to be faster?' Dillon said this week. "I look at everything I can as a driver, from the lines in the track to the history of the track -- what typically happens, who is good there? We're just going to do our best and try to not leave anything behind. This opportunity is so great. It doesn't happen often." Hamlin -- who currently sits in the final playoff transfer position -- won at Kansas in Spring of 2012, but has had an inconsistent record here. He crashed out of the spring races the last two seasons, taking finishes of 41st and 37th. He was, though, runner-up to Logano in this race last fall. "I think each race you're going to have a handful that are going to have issues -- Kansas I don’t think will be any different and Talladega we know will be crazy," Hamlin said. "That's why we're not out of it my any means, we just have a little hole we have to dig out of."

CAIN:JIMMIE JOHNSON'S IN PRIME CHASE FORM AGAIN

RELATED:  Johnson locks up Round of 8 berth | 'Six-Time' through the years

As Jimmie Johnson took the checkered flag at Charlotte Motor Speedway Sunday -- for the eighth time in his career -- he was full of emotion and adrenaline. It is his well-earned Fast Pass ticket into the next round of the championship, which amazingly will be the farthest he's advanced under NASCAR's newest title Chase format.

The victory also ended the longest winless streak in the six-time Sprint Cup champion's career -- a 25-race span. It has been six whole months since the most accomplished driver of his era hoisted a trophy in Victory Lane. The seasons are practically ready to change. Massive worry has been averted.

Please.

"Nobody ever gave up, we know what a champion Jimmie is," said team owner and 2017 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Rick Hendrick, adding with a smile, "I've never taken the champagne bath in 30-something years, so it was like our first race (victory) again."

This win for Johnson wasn't just another trophy, another confetti moment in his surefire Hall of Fame career. This was a concerted effort to make good on this team's own high standards.

It was the product of hard work from behind the scenes at the No. 48 Lowe's team and all of Hendrick Motorsports. And the result was verification that the sport's most celebrated champion of the time is not done yet.

"There wasn't any fist pounding per se, but what we did do was try to get together with all the heads of state, let's say," Johnson's crew chief Chad Knaus explained. "... what we were trying to do was identify where our weaknesses were, and once we started to hone in on where we thought we needed to get some gains, we started to allocate the resources to where we needed it.

"We've put responsibility in some different areas that maybe we hadn't in the past and I think that all of Hendrick Motorsports is definitely going to feel a lot of responsibility for this victory, which is great for all of us."

And a long time coming.

RELATED: Power Rankings after Charlotte

Johnson -- who qualified for the Chase with wins at Atlanta (in February) and California (in March) -- has led the most laps (363) of any competitor in the first four races of the Chase. Only two-time Chase winner Martin Truex Jr. is  near that total (360 laps). The best of the rest hasn't even resulted in 200 laps out front.

Still pit road miscues -- speeding penalties, crew mistakes -- ultimately derailed Johnson's trophy moments no matter how many laps he has led in the Chase. His finishes of 12th, eighth and seventh, have not been indicative of how competitive he was in the opening Chase Round of 16.

He has been competitive but too often gutted with the result.

This win Sunday wasn't just the breathe-a-little-easier ticket to the Round of 8. It was a rebirth, a reminder of what this organization is capable of.

In the last two years, Johnson has famously and painfully been eliminated from the Chase in by the second round.

And now, he is six races away from a chance to tie NASCAR's all-time greatest drivers --  Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt -- with seven Sprint Cup titles.

Some -- probably Johnson and Knaus -- would say it's much too early to start thinking in those terms. But part of the allure and amazement in earning so many championships is the work it takes to even be in position for them.

With so many changes in NASCAR's title structure throughout Johnson's career -- more so than what Petty and Earnhardt faced even -- it has been an accomplishment to even realistically contend for the big trophy. And there is no time to leave anything on the table.

"There's no way I could have dreamed about this," Johnson allowed Sunday. "To have one sponsor (Lowe's), one manufacturer (Chevrolet), one crew chief (Knaus), being at one team (Hendrick), this is fairy-tale stuff. It's been really special."

But Johnson is the first to insist those are deep thoughts reserved for November.

RELATED: Chase Grid after Charlotte

Right now, he's got some races to win, messages to send, trophies to hoist, and history to make.

"You know, I've always raced for the experience I've had in the car," Johnson said Sunday in Charlotte. "It hasn't been about stats or the previous trophies that I've won or what's really ahead of me. There's an experience that I have in the car that I chase and I love.

"The community that's created on a race team, the bond and friendship that you have with the crew chief and teammates, that's the stuff that keeps me going."

"And," he added. "we're doing what we need to and that brings a lot of optimism to the team. You get this machine of Hendrick Motorsports rolling and some momentum on our side, we can accomplish a lot and I think all four cars are showing that.

"We've got a lot more to show the rest of the year."